Former BlackRock executives have teamed up to use AI and human investment analysis to support financial decision-making.

New York – May 18, 2021 – Climate & Capital Media (Climate & Capital), a global media organization dedicated to driving climate action, and Science4Data, an advanced AI-driven analysis company, are partnering to introduce Climate Media Signal, the first public AI platform analyzing ESG and climate media trends using the world’s most advanced data tools. The partnership combines Climate & Capital’s pioneering climate journalism with Science4Data’s proprietary analysis of climate and ESG related trends, sentiment, and risk.

“We worked with Climate & Capital Media to create Climate Media Signal to help clients anticipate and get ahead of news trends and introduce intelligence on top emerging trends facing businesses,” says Tsveta Petrova, a Columbia University researcher who originally partnered with Science4Data as Eurasia Group’s Data and Analytics practice leader. Now Petrova is helping Science4Data develop several key ESG initiatives. “We know that media sentiment is a key driver of business and policy. ESG, including climate, is one of today’s most important trends to monitor closely,” Petrova continues.

Climate Media Signal uses intelligent crawlers to curate, tune and collect climate and ESG semantic information from tens of thousands of media sites. Articles are then analyzed by advanced Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning Algorithms to derive insights and best-in-class visualization and integration analysis wherever needed. Through the partnership, readers will have the opportunity to interactively explore the contextual language of climate across targeted news and social media channels. (Click here to learn more.)

“With the distorting effects of social media and the fragmentation of global headlines, we think it is important to provide our readers an unbiased, data-driven view of how the media is covering ESG and climate-related trends,” says Climate & Capital founder Peter McKillop. “With the help of Science4data’s platform, we will be able to translate media metadata into actionable insights for investors to act on.”

The idea was developed by Chris Dhanraj, managing principal of investments at CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen) and former head of investment strategy at BlackRock iShares, and Peter McKillop, who was the global head of media analysis at BlackRock and global head of iShares communications. “Media is playing a disproportionate role in shaping global perceptions on climate change and ESG, and yet no one has been publishing metadata on how to interpret and act on emerging megatrends,” says Dhanraj.