Understanding Sustainable Finance Initiatives through Green Banking Practices in India: A Conceptual Approach

The majority of banks in the country are religiously taking Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives and environmental management issues into account (Sharma and Mani 2013). Still, the state of green banking in India is at its nascent stage as compared to the other parts of the world (Kumar and Prakash 2018). This paper is dedicated to green initiatives taken by the Indian Public and Private sector banks to create green brand trust among their stakeholders. Therefore, the focus of this chapter is to explore the implementation of green strategies such as green internal processes, setting green guidelines, and creating green products for Indian banking customers. The paper will further explore the challenges faced by the banking systems in implementing green practices. These challenges include the understanding of guidelines set by the central bank, acceptance of green culture by the customers (especially in rural India), hike in service prices due to green practices, and employees' state of training to adopt these practices. Finally, the significance of green banking activities for sustainable development is examined. The study outlines the shortcomings of previous research and suggests trends and avenues for further investigation, stressing the necessity of empirical research to evaluate the long-term effects of green banking practices and investigate creative solutions to new problems in sustainable finance.