Completed Project Case Study: News Sentiment Analysis for Sustainable Investing

The Challenge 

The European Union’s revised Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires around 10,000 large companies, as well as non-EU firms operating significantly within the EU, to disclose detailed sustainability information. A central issue within this framework is materiality: which environmental, social, or governance (ESG) risks genuinely matter for a company’s financial performance and therefore must be reported? 

Currently, companies largely determine this themselves, and there is no universally accepted, transparent methodology for objectively ranking ESG materiality. Investors rely on corporate disclosures to guide capital allocation, yet there is no consistent third-party tool to verify whether a company is prioritising the right sustainability drivers. 

This project sought to address that gap by developing a data-driven method to identify and rank sustainability factors based on their measurable financial impact.  

The Project 

This project set out to build a practical tool to help identify which sustainability issues genuinely matter for a company’s financial performance. Rather than relying solely on what companies choose to disclose. The team examined how sustainability topics are discussed in the news and how those discussions relate to changes in share prices. 

Working with Mettle Capital, Professor Date and the team developed a prototype system that reads large volumes of public news articles about companies and turns that information into measurable “sentiment scores”, essentially tracking whether coverage of environmental, social, or governance issues is positive or negative. The system then compares these sentiment signals with movements in the company’s share price. 

By analysing these relationships, the model produces a ranked list of the sustainability factors that appear to have the greatest financial impact on a particular company. In simple terms, it helps answer questions such as: Which ESG issues really influence investor behaviour? and What should this company focus on in its sustainability reporting and strategy? 

The result is a transparent, data-driven approach to identifying material sustainability risks, something that is increasingly important under new European reporting rules.

Key Outcomes 

The project successfully developed and tested a working prototype capable of generating company-level materiality rankings. Mettle Capital has already begun publicising the methodology with key stakeholders, positioning it as a potential industry standard for objective sustainability materiality assessment. 

The prototype demonstrates that: 

• News sentiment can be systematically converted into quantitative ESG signals 

• These signals can be linked to share price behaviour 

• Financial materiality can be ranked transparently using a reproducible methodology 

By using open-source data and a clear modelling framework, the tool enhances transparency in sustainable investing and supports more consistent ESG disclosure practices. 

Collaboration 

Collaboration between Brunel University and Mettle Capital was central to the project’s success. Mettle brought extensive data sourcing capabilities, regulatory knowledge, and a clear understanding of client needs in sustainable investing. Academic expertise ensured the robustness of the modelling approach and strengthened methodological decisions at critical points in development. The partnership benefited from clear problem definition, pragmatic expectations, and strong communication throughout  

One key learning was the importance of bridging the “language gap” between academia and industry, translating mathematical modelling approaches into tools that directly address operational and regulatory requirements. 

UKFin+ Agile funding created the space to formalise and accelerate this collaboration, enabling rapid prototyping with relatively modest resource requirements  

Impact 

For industry, the project delivers a practical method to assess financial materiality in sustainability reporting which is a growing regulatory requirement across the EU and UK. The prototype provides Mettle Capital with a scalable product concept that can support asset managers, companies, and auditors navigating CSRD obligations. 

For academia, the project rekindled and extended research on the use of news sentiment in financial forecasting, translating prior theoretical work into a market-facing application  

It also strengthens Brunel’s impact case around applied financial mathematics and sustainable finance. 

More broadly, the work contributes to a shift toward evidence-based sustainable investing, where materiality decisions are grounded in measurable financial signals rather than subjective interpretation.

Going Forward 

The next phase involves adapting the prototype from single-company analysis to batch processing, improving computational efficiency, and conducting further machine learning validation  

With sustainability reporting becoming mandatory from January 2026, the timing of this research is critical. By combining open-source data, transparent modelling, and industry expertise, this collaboration positions the UK at the forefront of fintech innovation in sustainable finance. 

UKFin+ Role 

UKFin+ Agile funding provided catalytic support for the rapid development of a high-impact prototype. The relatively low-cost, high-value model enabled academic time to be protected and industry resources to be leveraged efficiently  

By supporting early-stage experimentation grounded in real market need, UKFin+ helped transform a conceptual methodology into a deployable fintech product with strong regulatory relevance.