Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance criteria: Analysis of the Banking Industry

Abstract

Environmental unconsciousness, social problems and corporate misconduct have been and are present in our community and society. Perhaps, environmentally friendly actions have increased among individuals, families and corporations in the last years, along with the appearance of new concepts and measures, between others, Environmental Social and Corporate Governance (ESG). Due to the growing interest of the topic, the importance of financial institutions in the economy and society and their capacity to influence in positive environmental and social causes, the main goal of this project, starting from an existing ESG evaluation of 6 commercial banks is to analyze overall tendencies of the sector and make comparisons between banks. On the other hand, this research taking as a reference a small Basque bank, analyzes specific ESG aspects that are comparable with the bigger entities, in order to evaluate the integration of such aspects.