Published Paper Details:

The adoption of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) frameworks in the Indian banking sector is vital for fostering sustainability and stakeholder trust. This research focuses on five top banks - State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, ICICI Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank - assessing the impacts and challenges faced by ESG practices. 315 employees, managers and customers were surveyed to compute the existence of ESG and in return its implications on Finance performance, Risk Management, and stakeholder sentiment. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is identified to find the relationship between the ESG dimension and the financial performance in order to know that the Governance practices lead positive straight line followed by Environmental and social dimension. It is proven that Cluster Analysis is applied to distinguish banks as high, moderate and low ESG adopters, and point out that there is very much stronger Private Banks lead on ESG adoption. Correlation Analysis also shows that strong positive correlation (r = 0.72, p < 0.01) is found with risk management and Multiple Linear Regression findings suggest that 10% increase in ESG scores end up leading to 5.3% increase in financial performance. To complement these findings, SWOT Analysis provides strategic insights into the strengths and weaknesses, its opportunities and prospects in addition to the threats it faces in the Receiver Status Marketplace. The report findings indicate that private banks are better placed for governance and environmental innovation, but in terms of social contribution, public banks are not to be under looked. However, lessons in terms of ESG training being unavailable, regulatory risks and high implementation prices stop broad implementation. The study finishes with practical suggestions, including increasing capacity for, reinforcing regulation of, and the application of ESG metrics in the allocation of lending to encourage sustainable finance. This research contributes to the growing tide of literature on ESG in Indian banking through provision of evidence-based analysis of its outcomes and challenges and recommendations for action on compliance with global ESG benchmarks. By the use of the state of the art statistical methods assures the robustness of results and offers a comprehensive framework for further researches on sustainable banking.