Green Banking : A Conceptual Framework

As we have seen an increase in awareness around sustainability and climate change, with the help of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth documentary in 2006, we see organizations moving towards mitigating the effects of climate change in various ways (Al Gore, n.d). As this corporate social responsibility has become more prevalent, organizations are now pushing their green agenda by publishing sustainability reports, doing mass marketing and implementing sustainable business practices to portray the image that they too are working towards protecting the earth’s natural environment all the while focusing on their underlying goal of selling their products and

Wells Fargo has voiced their commitment to environmental responsibility in all areas of business, supporting environmentally friendly business opportunities and providing a

Environmental change is a logical certainty, and progressively a lived human concern. However, it is not yet what everybody should call social-global problem in one voice. It's not an essential almost we shape our social practices, nor a sufficiently huge social standard to go about as an imperative on our conduct. Around the planet there is developing energy to characterize environmental change as a security issue and thus as a motivation topping issue that merits noteworthy consideration and assets. Calls for movement are developing - yet at the same time outlined activities to address the issue has a cost or weight that will hamper business and go about as a drag on the economy.

Sustainability has achieved a more ecological tone in the past few decades in terms of a business model, but it originally derives from the concept that a business is successful due to the interconnected areas of economics, culture and ecology. Sustainability is now becoming a somewhat fad and thus it is understandable that it could be misconstrued by some as a form of “greenwashing”. Greenwashing is the idea that a company markets their “green” or environmentally friendly changes in policy and values, despite no actual concrete changes in these areas, for example some argue that Fiji Water greenwasher in terms of their marketing as an environmentally friendly water company despite their little effort to actually go carbon-neutral. Many companies are seeing the

To a regular person, the global concern about ‘going green’ might appear as a result of speculation from nervous politicians and alarmed citizens. But the reality is totally different. In recent years, businesses have gained much knowledge about the impact of their activities on environment and in turns their customers. Businesses are successively venturing to earn greater revenues. In this process, they are trying out every best possibility to entice their contributors- from customers to investors. Regardless to say, stakeholders these days are more socially responsible than ever. So to keep up to their expectations, businesses are also trying to expand or limit their activities to save the environment- from doing relentless research on lowering waste to lean management and even trying out various eco-friendly activities. Despite of all these, the ultimate question remains unanswered if it is financially beneficial to adapt those initiatives that is going to serve the

As TD continues to expand, the environment is challenging us to reduce the environmental impact despite the rapid business expansion. The important areas of focus in managing the environmental footprint of TD business operations are: "Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, improving energy efficiency, reducing paper use, reducing waste volumes and water use, greening our supply chain." The majority of financing is based on personal and residential lending. Wholesale banking and commercial lending account for the remainder of the financing. “Approximately 5% of our total financing involves clients operating in environmentally and socially sensitive industries such as mining, oil and gas extraction, power & utilities, forestry, automotive, chemicals and

Secondly, its environmental management system developed based on the PDCA cycle. It has been set a medium and long-term goals through the PDCA cycle. It promoted resource conservation by reducing the CO2 and consumption of electricity, paper and energy. Then it gave the Environmental performance data to support its result and achievement. Additionally, they promoted a new financial product, The Green Reform Loan Plan, which reduce 0.3% interest rates on loan for ecological reforms. It encouraged using solar photovoltaics and Eco Cute hot water systems, which reduce CO2 emission. Then the 0.3% of the Green reform Loan Plan loan amount was donated to Satoama

Going green is a phrase that has swept America back and forth multiple times over the past few decades. No matter where one is to go, a person is likely to see something that contributes to the environment. This could be anything from community cleanup programs, to designated bins for trash and recyclables. Even the way buildings are made contribute to the topic of going green. One reason why industries take up the theme of going green is to the fact that there is money to be made. Minimizing waste in construction and manufacturing help companies to save money.

As we can see , environmental challenges in recent years have increased the trend of “going green” in businesses like never before. There are two main factors that are currently pushing toward environmental-friendly business practices, harsher international and local regulations, and the high fluctuations of fossil-fuel prices.

Despite the fact that the firms have been more inclined towards ensuring sustainability using renewable energy and the governments have instilled regulations to ensure that firms comply with the multitude of environmental rules and standards, the carbon footprint of the world has increased. Per a report published by the World Bank, the C02 emissions in 2000 was 4.034 metric tons per capita and in 2015 it increased to 4.996 metric tons per capita (C02 emissions, The World Bank). Even though the C02 emissions are increasing with a decreasing pace, the per year value has still gone up over the last 10 years. This indicates that while green businesses and a sustainable mindset has been the norm in organizations and their cultures, it still has not led to a fall in carbon emissions per year. The right mindset will aid the step in the right direction but the right execution is what will yield sustainable results.

Living on the Earth, it is important for each of the organizations as well as individuals to help with making it a better place to live. However for the current time, environmental degradation is still one of the most threatening problems confronted with human beings. The carbon dioxide emission has made the global warmth, which may cause the diminishing of lands where human beings could live on; air pollution has caused more diseases, climate change has led to more serious problems in biodiversity which is important to form a balanced natural environment, water toxic pollution has reduced the available access to clean water. In the everyday life of human beings, the unfavorable influences on the environment could be worse on condition that environmental degradation is not paid with enough attention (Bare, 2014). For instance, the applying of cars, which would cause inevitable air pollution and energy consumption, would add pressure for environmental protection (David and Michael, 2014). For the environmental sustainability, the individual activities are essential, but the responsibility of individuals could not be described as primary as the roles of organizations are rather important. This essay is going to talk about the responsibility of individual customers for environmental sustainability, as well as the responsibility of organizations. To form the environmental

Furthermore, voluntary climate change policy will result in elevating UBS’ reputation (Hoffman, 2005). As stated before, a large percentage of society all over the world has concerns about global warming. Different business units of UBS can benefit from this reputational aspect. First, private investors who consider environmental strategies in making investments will prefer UBS’ Wealth Management and Business Banking Switzerland above competitors such as Citigroup and Morgan Stanley. Second, institutional investors as well as private clients will value UBS’ environmental friendly reputation. Thirdly, UBS could broaden its scope by starting trading carbon credits. Their reputation could help them compete with competitors such as Morgan Stanley that is active in this are already. Besides their clients, UBS’ employees will be more motivated to work for a CR company since they believe that companies should contribute to solve global warming problems. Therefore, a green policy can increase the retention rates of skilled workers (Hoffman, 2005).

* Take advantage of the “green” trend that we are living nowadays and sell the company’s services as environmentally friendly and highlighting its social responsibility.

Essentially the world 's standard meaning of ecological sustainability is sustainable advancement, which implies sustainable financial development, which is an inconsistent expression. No type of financial development can be proceeded with inconclusively. Besides, all financial development today is terribly environmentally degrading

In the present era of globalization, as everyone is focused on the development process on the both levels, i.e. micro as well as at macro level and want to capture the world market at any cost, but they forget the side effects of development process which directly effect our environment and leads to the problem of climate change. The increase in the human activity, causes emission of harmful gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chrolofluorocarbon, which increase the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and responsible for the distortion of environment. All this action of humankind has a consequence which is called as global warming. The problem of climate change have direct impact on the eco-system and comply all the living being to adapt this change which is very dangerous for every individual of this eco-system. Therefore, there is an urgency to evaluate and promote the sustainable development approach in the society. With keeping in view these points, everybody in this society is concerned about the problem of climate change, whether it is a business organization or a corporate world, they both have started considering the issue of global warming and accordingly, expand or modify their operational activity through which they can contribute in mitigating the risk of climate change.