Sustainable banking: a literature review and integrative framework

E. Aracil, J.J. Nájera-Sánchez, F.J. Forcadell

Finance Research Letters Vol. 42, pp. 101932-1 - 101932-10

Summary:

The literature on sustainable banking has been prolific since the beginning of the century. This context prompts the need to understand and categorize an increasingly heterogeneous body of sustainable banking literature. We perform a literature review using bibliometric techniques of 676 articles published between 1995 and 2019 in the Web of Science (WoS) database. Our results provide a perspective on the evolution of the sustainable banking literature over time and across academic categories and journals. An integrative framework emerges from the review, providing a comprehensive perspective of the nine clusters or thematic areas in sustainable banking literature embedded in three domains: Ethical Foundations, Sustainable Products, and Business-Case. The framework integrates the rich literature on sustainable banking, maps the predominant research areas, and highlights the primary research gaps. Finally, the literature review demonstrates a progressive convergence of the instrumental and ethical approaches to sustainable banking. This convergence highlights the importance of both the vivid societal debate around the role of banks in the advancement toward sustainability and the business rationale for banks to engage in sustainable strategies.Sustainable bankingBanksCo-word analysisEthicsGreen bondsMicrofinanceSustainable responsible investment.

Spanish layman's summary:

Sistematizamos la literatura de banca sostenible en torno a tres dominios: Ética, Productos sostenibles y Estrategia. Los resultados muestran convergencia entre el impulso a los SDG por parte de los bancos (Normativo) y la justificación empresarial de sus estrategias sostenibles (Instrumental).

English layman's summary:

We propose an integrative framework to systematize the sustainable banking literature around three domains: Ethical Foundations, Sustainable Products, and Business-Case. We find convergence between the ethical role of banks in achieving the SDG and the business-case for sustainability in finance.

Keywords: Sustainable banking; Banks; Co-word analysis; Ethics; Green bonds; Microfinance; Sustainable responsible investment

JCR Impact Factor and WoS quartile: 9,848 - Q1 (2021); 7,400 - Q1 (2023)

DOI reference: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.frl.2021.101932

Published on paper: October 2021.

Published on-line: January 2021.

Citation:
E. Aracil, J.J. Nájera-Sánchez, F.J. Forcadell, Sustainable banking: a literature review and integrative framework. Finance Research Letters. Vol. 42, pp. 101932-1 - 101932-10, October 2021. [Online: January 2021]