Tracking green banking growth and its link to environmental performance

Banks around the world are quietly transforming from financial intermediaries into environmental actors, and a new comprehensive analysis has now mapped, for the first time in a systematic and visual way, exactly how research on this transformation has evolved and what it tells us about the future of sustainable finance. A study published in Discover Global Society by Suman Kumawat, Kamakshi Mehta, and Amit Datta of Manipal University Jaipur combines large-scale bibliometric mapping with an in-depth framework-based review to reveal the intellectual structure of green banking research, the forces driving it, and the measurable environmental outcomes it produces. The findings arrive at a moment when the financial sector faces mounting pressure from regulators, investors, and the public to align capital flows with climate goals, making the study a timely guide for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers alike.

The research team began with a broad premise: green banking is no longer merely a branch of corporate social responsibility but a structural shift in how banks operate, lend, and design products. Green banking services encompass banking strategies and practices that integrate environmental factors into financial services, internal operations, and risk assessments in support of sustainable growth. The movement traces its roots to Triodos Bank and early promotion by U.S. policymakers, gaining institutional momentum in the early 1990s when the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative encouraged financial institutions to fund environmentally friendly projects and reduce their carbon footprints. Since then, growing alarm over greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons—which affect agriculture, water resources, ecological diversity, and overall well-being—has pushed banks to adopt green growth strategies in response to pressure from regulatory agencies, sustainable investors, financial institutions, and non-governmental organizations.

Methodologically, the study is a hybrid of quantitative science mapping and qualitative framework synthesis. The researchers searched the Scopus database using a carefully constructed Boolean string targeting terms such as “green banking,” “green bank,” “green banking services,” and “bank environmental performance,” restricted to the subject areas of economics, business, social sciences, and environmental science, and limited to final-stage peer-reviewed publications covering 2019 to 2024. The initial search returned 243 articles. Following the PRISMA protocol—the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses—the team removed eight duplicates and nine non-English articles, screened titles and abstracts, excluded 43 studies whose relevance was unclear, and eliminated 92 studies at full-text screening that were not directly related to the topic, along with 16 inaccessible papers. The final corpus of 226 articles was analyzed with VOSviewer and RStudio to examine citation networks, authorship patterns, keyword co-occurrence, and international collaboration, while 35 papers selected for conceptual richness were subjected to a deeper review using two complementary analytical frameworks: the Theory–Context–Method (TCM) framework and the Antecedents–Decisions–Outcomes (ADO) model.

The bibliometric mapping produced a vivid picture of who is driving the field. A total of 68 authors met the citation threshold of at least ten citations, with Bukhari ranking first in author citations, followed by Sharma, Roy, Jawaid, Aslam, Julia, Kassim, Ozili, Bouteraa, and Nisha. Co-citation analysis of cited authors, using a threshold of 20 citations, grouped 107 linked authors into five distinct clusters, revealing both well-established core research groups and emerging academic niches that remain only loosely connected to the mainstream. Perhaps most striking was the geography of the field: India led with 48 publications, followed by Canada with 27, South Africa with 26, Bangladesh with 25, and New Zealand and Portugal with 25 each. Collaboration networks revealed four major clusters of international cooperation—one linking Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Oman; another connecting India, Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia; a third spanning Pakistan, France, the United States, Spain, and China; and a fourth joining the United Kingdom and Germany. The dominance of developing Asian economies, the authors note, is redefining green banking as a key instrument of national economic resilience rather than merely an ethical aspiration.

Keyword co-occurrence analysis, restricted to terms appearing at least ten times, produced three clusters that illuminate the field’s conceptual core. A green cluster centered on sustainable development themes such as sustainable banking, green finance, climate change, and sustainable finance; a red cluster focused squarely on green banking, green financing, sustainable development, and environmental performance; and a blue cluster captured related economic and environmental themes. Environmental performance, the study emphasizes, can be assessed through both direct indicators—carbon emissions and energy consumption—and indirect proxies such as disclosure scores and sustainability reporting, underscoring that the field relies on both objective measurement and disclosure-based evaluation.

The TCM analysis revealed a heavy theoretical concentration. Of the thirteen theories identified across the 35 reviewed papers, legitimacy theory, institutional sociology theory, and stakeholder theory dominated, appearing in six, two, and three articles respectively. Legitimacy theory suggests that organizations act to align with societal norms and values to justify their existence, while stakeholder theory holds that organizations must weigh the interests of all stakeholders, not just shareholders, in decision-making. Contextually, Bangladesh contributed 11 of the reviewed articles and India four, reflecting the framing of green banking as a national development effort in emerging economies, in contrast to the more strategy-oriented perspective found in developed countries. Methodologically, structural equation modeling (SEM) emerged as the dominant analytical tool, used in eight studies, with qualitative approaches filling in perspectives on constraints, costs, and employee awareness.

The ADO framework then organized the practical machinery of green banking into three tiers. Antecedents fell into three categories: green operations, such as reducing paper use, adopting energy-efficient technology, promoting internet banking, training employees, managing e-waste, conducting energy audits, and organizing tree-planting campaigns; green policy practices, including green branches, green partnerships with suppliers and investors, green agreements, and corporate-level initiatives; and green products and services, ranging from environmental loans and microfinance offerings to interactive websites, secure green transactions, and reduced ink, fuel, and print consumption. Decisions—how banks respond to these antecedents—include adopting green financing mechanisms, implementing green credit guidelines, restricting lending to highly polluting industries, financing renewable energy, and improving environmental disclosures to secure sustainable funding and enhance legitimacy. Outcomes, finally, include improved environmental performance, enhanced bank reputation, stronger customer trust and loyalty, and progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals, though the evidence is nuanced: green offerings can reduce credit risk but may increase it where expertise is limited and information is asymmetric, and green credit may initially depress bank performance before green practices moderate the effect.

The study also sounds a cautionary note about the gap between symbolic and substantive environmental action. The authors highlight the risk of greenwashing when banks pursue ISO certification primarily to demonstrate compliance rather than to achieve measurable results such as lower carbon footprints or better green credit deployment. They identify a notable tension between energy-efficient technology and attitudes toward digital payments: even the most efficient infrastructure will not deliver sustainability if digital literacy is lacking or data privacy concerns persist. This suggests that top management must actively incentivize technology adoption and certify the green trust of digital platforms, aligning user mindset with technological progress. Customer practices, the review finds, have only a partial impact on environmental performance, whereas operational and policy measures significantly boost both green financing and ecological outcomes.

Looking forward, the authors chart a detailed research agenda. Theoretically, they call for scholars to move beyond the entrenched dominance of legitimacy and stakeholder theories and explore alternatives such as sustainable development theory, risk management theory, socially responsible investment theory, green finance theory, and social identity theory. Contextually, they urge comparative studies between developing countries, where green banking is tied to national growth strategies, and developed countries, where it is treated as a strategic initiative, to understand how the practice operates under different economic and political conditions. Methodologically, they recommend diversifying beyond SEM toward longitudinal designs and mixed methods that can capture the long-term effects of green banking initiatives. Empirically, they emphasize the need to validate the links between green operations, policies, products, and bank performance across different banking settings, incorporating customer and employee perceptions into models of adoption behavior.

The practical implications are equally concrete. The review recommends that banks incorporate paperless banking, green finance products, and eco-friendly operations into their core strategies rather than treating them as peripheral additions, enabling institutions to gain competitive advantage, reduce risk, and meet national and global sustainability targets. Managers are advised to invest in employee training to build the skills and confidence needed to work with green technologies, and to foster open communication that cultivates a culture of environmental sustainability. For regulators, the findings reinforce the value of frameworks such as India’s 2023 Reserve Bank of India green deposit framework and TCFD-aligned climate risk disclosures, which provide structured pathways for financial institutions to expand eco-friendly lending. Taken together, the study makes clear that green banking has moved decisively from the margins of corporate charity into the core of financial strategy—and that the next phase of its evolution will depend on rigorous measurement, diverse theory, and honest accounting of what banks actually deliver for the planet.