Good Banking: The role of banking in driving ESG goals

Rajashekara Maiya

By Rajashekara Maiya

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the landmark Paris Agreement, which came into unit successful 2016, arsenic good arsenic the increasing consciousness connected clime alteration person had an interaction connected Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals of organisations crossed industries, including banking and fiscal services. As per a BCG study connected sustainable finance, ample organization investors are progressively incorporating ESG metrics into their superior allocation and stewardship criteria.

Banks undoubtedly clasp sizeable clout successful shaping and enabling the ESG goals of industries and corporates. In addition, they besides person an accidental to alteration their ain ecosystem by embracing the close exertion and designing policies astir employment and inclusivity. Some of the areas wherever banks person an accidental to enactment and thrust ESG goals are:

Financial inclusion
Financial inclusion is cardinal to achieving the extremity of ‘ending poverty’ arsenic portion of the UN SDGs for 2030. Banks person an accidental arsenic good arsenic a work to supply banking services to the unbanked and underbanked colonisation crossed the globe, thereby allowing them to enactment efficaciously successful the economical arena. Access to banking helps promote savings and makes inclusion into payment schemes easier.

Inclusive financing, which entails a systemic mandate to promote entree to concern for populations that traditionally autumn extracurricular the ambit of accepted financing is key. Grameen Bank successful Bangladesh is simply a palmy example. Ujjivan Small Finance Bank successful India has successfully followed a akin model. Besides these backstage players, authorities initiatives specified arsenic the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, a fiscal inclusion programme of the authorities of India person had a important impact.

Investor activism
Shareholders and investors are seeking greater openness and disclosure astir issues that interest ESG, whether it is astir curbing the weapon civilization successful the US, penalising chronic polluters specified arsenic large oil, oregon encouraging sustainable businesses. The information that banks and fiscal institutions play a cardinal relation successful providing the indispensable backing and superior for the functioning of assorted industries, puts them successful the halfway of the ESG revolution.

Sustainable operations
Aside from lending policies and lawsuit offerings, determination is besides an accidental to streamline interior operations of banks to marque them much ESG friendly. This includes the adoption of technologies specified arsenic cloud, AI etc. to guarantee much businesslike operations, inclusive hiring policies, and adopting eco-friendly practices that assistance trim their c footprint. The pandemic has created its ain challenges and opportunities. For example, distant banking operations person go mainstream, spurred by the request for societal distancing arsenic good outgo cutting.

Overall, banks request to beryllium mindful of their interaction connected larger environmental, social, and governance issues and intimately way their reputational hazard index. As governments, customers, shareholders, go much aware, banks indispensable emergence to the juncture and deliver.

The writer is vice-president, planetary caput – Business Consulting-Finacle astatine Infosys