An apparaisal on the performance of banks offering green financing in Bangladesh

Abstract

Environmental degradation has been identified to be one of the major impediments for the development of Bangladesh. Apart from facing power or energy crisis, World Health Organization has also classified Bangladesh to be in the fourth position among the polluted countries in the world. Faced with this challenge, the government of Bangladesh introduced the Green Financing Policy, and encourages banks to participate in offering green financing to promote environmental-friendly for substantial economic development. Being recently introduced, this paper mainly aims to examine how this policy has change the way banks in Bangladesh carry out their financing businesses. Specifically with three research objectives, this research firstly examines the relation of profitability with green financing on 30 sample banks for 2012, 2013 and 2014 by using one way ANOVA as well as Pearson correlations and finds that the result varies among the commercial banks, Islamic commercial banks, state owned commercial banks and foreign commercial banks. Secondly, this research critically evaluates whether the policies of green financing are Shariah compliant; by examining it against the main sources of Shariah (Al-Quran and Hadith). The finding suggests that the major aspects of green financing are very much in line with Shariah principles. Finally the paper aimed to examine how far the banks in Bangladesh have been adopting the green policy in order to assess the future of green financing and sustainability development for Bangladesh. Being one of the first few to critically examine green finance from the perspectives of both conventional and Islamic banks, this research is believed to be beneficial for the industry and policy makers in the effort to evaluate the role and contribution of banks in addressing the main environmental issues in Bangladesh. In addition to that, through meticulous examination on the adherence of the current green policy with the Shariah principles, this research is also expected to be the one of the blueprints to encourage Islamic banks and financing institutions in Bangladesh to be more involved green financing, in order to attain both prosperity in this world and hereafter