Abstract
The study examines the impact of environmental, social, and governance practices on the performance of banking institutions listed on the NSE. The ESG score was collected for 2021 and 2022 from CRISIL, and Financial Data was collected from Prowess IQ. ROA, ROE, and Tobin's Q were used as proxies for the firm's operational, financial, and market performance. Tobin's Q, ROA, and ROE correlate highly with ESG, environment, social, and governance scores. Using fixed-effect panel regression, it has been observed that the aggregate ESG scores have been found to have a statistically significant positive impact on ROA but a statistically insignificant negative impact on ROE and Tobin's Q. However, if measured individually, the governance score and Capital Adequacy Ratio positively affect ROA, demonstrating that strengthening the governance and capital adequacy can improve a bank's operational performance. The study concludes that India's banking sector is far from adopting sustainable strategies to boost financial and market performance. The findings and implications are important to investors, banking executives, and policymakers.
References
1. Agarwal, B., Gautam, R. S., Jain, P., Rastogi, S., Bhimavarapu, V. M., & Singh, S. (2023). Impact of Environmental, Social, and Governance Activities on the Financial Performance of Indian Health Care Sector Firms: Using Competition as a Moderator. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 16(2). https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm16020109
2. Alshehhi, A., Nobanee, H., & Khare, N. (2018). The impact of sustainability practices on corporate financial performance: Literature trends and future research potential. Sustainability (Switzerland), 10(2). https://doi.org/10.3390/su10020494
3. Buallay, A. (2020). Sustainability reporting and firm’s performance: Comparative study between manufacturing and banking sectors. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 69(3), 431–445. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-10-2018-0371
4. Capella, A. P. (2002). Sustainable Finance: An assessment of environmental risks and opportunities in Latin America. In International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (Issue November).
5. Chelawat, H., & Trivedi, I. V. (2016). The business value of ESG performance: the Indian context. Asian Journal of Business Ethics, 5(1–2), 195–210. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13520-016-0064-4
6. De Lucia, C., Pazienza, P., & Bartlett, M. (2020). Does good ESG lead to better financial performances by firms? Machine learning and logistic regression models of public enterprises in Europe. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12(13), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12135317
7. Friede, G., Busch, T., & Bassen, A. (2015). ESG and financial performance: aggregated evidence from more than 2000 empirical studies. Journal of Sustainable Finance and Investment, 5(4), 210–233. https://doi.org/10.1080/20430795.2015.1118917
8. Garcia, A. S., & Orsato, R. J. (2020). Testing the institutional difference hypothesis: A study about environmental, social, governance, and financial performance. Business Strategy and the Environment, 29(8), 3261–3272. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2570
9. Karelina, A., Pakpahan, E., Toni, N., & Br. Tarigan, A. E. (2022). Effect of Current Ratio, Return on Assets, and Debt to Equity Ratio on Profit Growth in Listed Banking Companies on the Indonesia Stock Exchange Year 2019-2021. International Journal of Social Science Research and Review, 5(11), 63–72. https://doi.org/10.47814/ijssrr.v6i11.617
10. Linnenluecke, M. K. (2022). Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance in the context of multinational business research. Multinational Business Review, 30(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1108/MBR-11-2021-0148
11. Menicucci, E., & Paolucci, G. (2023). ESG dimensions and bank performance: an empirical investigation in Italy. Corporate Governance (Bingley), 23(3), 563–586. https://doi.org/10.1108/CG-03-2022-0094
12. Muhammad Naeem, st, Hamid Ullah, nd, & Shahid Jan, rd. (2021). The Impact of ESG Practices on Firm Performance: Evidence From Emerging Countries. Indian Journal of Economics and Business, 20(1), 731–750. http://www.ashwinanokha.com/IJEB.php
13. Prokopowicz, D. (2020). Implementation of the Principles of Sustainable Economic Development As a Key Element of the Pro-Ecological Transformation of the Economy Towards a Green Economy and Circular Economy. In International Journal of New Economics and Social Sciences (Vol. 11, Issue 1). https://doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0014.3558
14. Șerban, R. A., Mihaiu, D. M., & Țichindelean, M. (2022). Environment, Social, and Governance Score and Value Added Impacts on Market Capitalisation: A Sectoral‐Based Approach. Sustainability (Switzerland), 14(4). https://doi.org/10.3390/su14042069
15. Shrivastava, K. (2022). Indian Banks adopting to ESG Practices : An exploratory study based on D-SIBs. The Journal of Indian Institute of Banking & Finance, 12–18.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2025 South India Journal of Social Sciences
