Only reflecting the industry or critical reporting? News coverage about sustainable finance in Germany

With the increasing need to channel financial capital to reach the sustainable development goals, various actors (political, financial and NGOs) are trying to place their perspectives in the public sphere. Previous research has mainly focused on the coverage of climate change in the news media, whereas the financial aspect of transitioning our society to a net-zero future has often been overseen. This study manually content-analysed 479 news articles in Germany to find out about the main topics, actors and representation of sustainable finance (SF) in the news media. Findings show that media coverage has steadily increased since 2019, with a strong focus on European politics and political actors in Germany. Whereas differences across news outlets were identified, SF was overall mainly presented in a positive tone with advantageous characteristics, pointing out the positive performance of sustainable investments. The findings imply a predominance of neo-capitalistic representations of SF in the news that forego a more critical, differentiated and diversified discussion of the role of finance and the economy in transforming our society towards carbon-neutrality.