Climate reputation risk and abnormal returns in the stock markets: A focus on large emitters

Reputation risk is among the possible climate transition risks companies face, especially in emission-intensive industries. Failing to meet stakeholders' expectations about the contribution to climate goals might influence investors' strategies and produce financial damages. We look at the climate-related social media talk in a sample of highly polluting companies. For these companies, reputation risk materialises if their climate talk is perceived as not coherent with their action-taking. We then assess the impact of climate talk on short-term stock market performance, as measured by abnormal returns, and find a positive association between climate-related social media talks and abnormal returns. The strength of this association lowers during peak days of social media attention on climate-related topics.