Environment protection under corporate social responsibility in the banking sector in Punjab

Abstract

The present study has analyzed the role of select Indian banks in environmental protection in the Ludhiana district of Punjab. This thesis provides useful theoretical, conceptual and practical insights about CSR, banks and environment. In this thesis, CSR has been broadly defined as how business organizations run their core business and how ethically they interact with all their stakeholders, particularly immediate stakeholders that are workers, customers, natural environment and broader society. It has been argued that if profits are made by exploiting workers, cheating customers, society and by exploiting public wealth and natural resources then no matter how much amount of profit is spent on social, environmental and developmental activities under CSR would compensate its exploitative character. Various conceptual and theoretical facets of CSR, environment and banking sector have been explained in the Indian context. The empirical study has focused on the select Indian banks and role played by them in environmental protection under their CSR policy. It has been found that the select banks have not taken adequate sustainable banking initiatives and the select banks do not have the policy to discourage lending to ecologically destructive projects. Therefore, CSR in the Indian banking sector has also been reduced to spending a stipulated sum on some social, environmental and welfare activities while simultaneously lending to ecologically destructive projects. newline newline newline