Green Banking Practices – A Review

Abstract

Society is facing most complicated issues of climate change. People nowadays are more conversant with global warming and its inherent consequences on human life. So change is the need of the hour for the survival and continuous efforts should be made for the environmental management in a sustainable manner. It is not only the concern of the government and the direct polluters but also of other stakeholders like financial institutions such as banks, which are playing a fundamental role in the development of the society. Banking activities are not physically related to the environment, but the external impact of their customer activities is substantial. So there is need for banks to adopt green strategies into their operations, buildings, investments and financing strategies. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the green rating standards given by RBI, the World Bank’s environmental and social norms, the initiatives taken by public and private sector banks in India in the adoption of Green Banking practices and to enlist the significant strategies for adoption of Green Banking.

Keywords: Green Banking, Green Banking Strategies, Indian Banks Initiatives, Green Building, and Banking, Green Coin Ratings by RBI, World Bank Environmental and Social (E&S) Norms