CHAPTER-1

INTRODUCTION
1.1. Introduction
The Green Banking is now popular worldwide now-a-days. It is for
stopping the environmental degradation and making this planet habitable. The concept of
Green Banking was developed in the western countries. Green banking is a general term,
which can cover multitude of areas from a bank being environmentally friendly to
how and also where their money is invested. Defining green banking is relatively
easy. It means promoting environmental-friendly practices and reducing
carbon footprint from banking activities. A green bank is a bank that promotes
environmental and social responsibility but operates as a traditional
community bank and provides excellent services to investors and clients. Its
progressive approach to the community and the earth makes it different from
the crowd. A green bank is also called ethical bank, environmentally
responsible bank, socially responsible bank, or a sustainable bank, and is expected
to consider all the social and environmental factors. Green banking involves pursuing
of financial and business policies that are not hazardous to environment rather help
conserve environment. The broad objective of green banking is to use resources
with responsibility and giving priority to environment and society. It is more about
focusing on 'mother planet and its sustainability', shifting from a traditional
approach on 'profit' or even 'people'. Green banking is not just another corporate
social responsibility (CSR) activity; it is all about going beyond to keep this world livable
without much damage. Green banking, which considers all the social and
environmental factors, is also called’ ethical banking'. Ethical banks started
with the aim of protecting the environment. These banks are like normal banks that
aim to protect the environment and are controlled by the same authorities. Green
banking, compared to normal banking, attaches more importance to environmental
Factors. Its aim is to provide good environmental and social business practices. It
checks all the factors before considering a loan whether the project is environment-
friendly and has any implication on the future of people and planet. On would be awarded a
loan only when all environmental safety standards are followed. Basically, green banking
avoids as much as paper work as possible - from go-green credit cards and go-
green mortgages to all transactions done online. It creates awareness
around business people about environmental and social responsibility, enabling
them to adopt environment friendly business practices, and follows environmental
standards for lending. When a person is awarded a loan, the interest is less
than normal banks because ethical banks give more importance to
environment-friendly factors - they do not operate with high interest rates only. The
world has seen much focus on economic progress and mankind has made giant
steps in its journey through time. The side-effects of the development process
have, however, also been equally enormous–loss of biodiversity, climatic change,
environmental damage, etc. Environmental issue such as, restoration of nature’s
face of beauty have also become more important as the world has progressed
economically. India is, a low carbon emitting country even among the developing
country, likely to be one of the worst sufferers of Global Warming. It is
experienced that climate change has already enhanced the frequency and intensity
of floods, droughts and cyclones in India, and would have negative impact on
water resources, land, crop agriculture and food security, fisheries and livestock,
forestry and bio-diversity, and human health as well. Banks hold a unique position
in an economic system that can affect production, services, business and other
activities through their financing activities and thus may contribute to removing
polluted environment. The banks should go green and play a pro-active role to take
environmental and ecological aspects as part of their lending and investment
principle, which would direct industries to go for mandated investment for
environmental management, use of appropriate technologies and management
systems. Green Banking means eco-friendly or environment-friendly banking to
stop environmental degradation to make this planet more habitable. This comes in
many forms. Providing innovative green products: using online banking instead of
branch banking, paying bills online instead of mailing them, purchasing green
mortgage, opening up of CDs, green credit cards and money market accounts at
online banks instead of large multi-branch banks or finding the local bank in your
area that is taking the biggest steps to support local green initiatives. Green
Banking is also a multi-stakeholders' endeavor where banks have to work closely
with government, NGOs, International Financial Institutes, International
Government Organizations, Central Bank, consumers and business communities to
reach the goal. A Green Banking is an ethical banking/ social banking (“banks with
a conscience”-Benefiter, 2011) as there is a strong building block which is
corporate social responsibility (CSR) within the agenda of green banking. CSR
bind banks in a relation with society/people showing the caring face of it in
different situation, especially, in crisis period. Furthermore, Green Banking is
regarded as sustainable banking, which has a role to safeguard the planet from
environmental degradation, with the aim of ensuring economic growth which is
sustainable. To implement “Green Banking”, SBI bank has developed the
regulations of Green banking in the year 2011. SBI Bank is the World’s Tenth
central bank, which has in depth and apparent knowledge on green banking. State
Owned Bank, State Owned Commercial Bank, Private Commercial Bank and
Foreign Commercial Bank etc., all banks are working diligently on Green Banking
as instructed by SBI Bank. As per SBI’s data on “Green Banking” 2019, all
scheduled banks have developed their own Green Banking Policy and Green
Banking unit. After increasing the environmental risks, banks have distributed
793,561.25 million Taka in 10,868 projects. In year 2012, banks have distributed
270,921.53 Million Taka as Green Financing. Banks have been encouraged to
utilize the 258.89 Million Taka as CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) in Green
Banking Activities and Green Projects. They have concentrated on Green
Marketing, Training and Development utilizing 90.42 million taka from their fund.
Current situation of online banking is, 3445 branches among 8392 branches
(41.05%) are completely technologically enriched. State Owned Banks and
Specialized Development Banks have continued working on online internet and
SMS banking initiative.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Jha & Bhome (2013)
Try to find out the ways to go green through green banking. Paper is based on
primary and secondary data. Researcher has interviewed 12 bank managers, 50
bank employees and bank customers. Further Paper highlights on steps in green
banking.
Ravi Meena (2013)
Covered the various aspects of green banking such as benefits of green banking,
methods adopting green banking, initiatives taken by Indian banks and finally
makes suggestions for banks to encourage green banking.
D. Kandavel (2013)
Reviewed the banks those are successfully implementing green banking
practices.Green banking in rural branches, financing for green projects, organizing
seminars, green loans etc. Some of the suggestions are given by the researcher.
Saleena T. A. (2014)
Compared green banking initiatives by SBI and ICICI bank also emphasize on
opportunities and challenges of green banking in India.
Jaggi Geetika (2014)
Evaluated the green banking initiatives taken by SBI and ICICI bank.
According to Ritu (2014)
There is an urgent need to create awareness and follow green banking practices to
make our environment human friendly and cover the green banking products,
methods, opportunities, benefits and challenges of green banking.
Nath , Nayak & Goel (2014)
Analyzed the green banking practices of top four public and private sector banks
in India and come to conclusion that if Indian banks want to penetrate global
economy, it is important for them to recognize their responsibilities as a global
corporate citizen.
Garg (2015)
Focused on the strategies for green banking and need of it.
Omid Sharifi & Bentolhoda K. Hossein(2015)
Made SWOC analysis of four (SBI, PNB, BOB, Canara bank) public sector banks
green initiatives. Study concludes that there is a vast range of green banking
opportunities for financial sector.
Lalon Raad Mozib (2015)
attempted to understand the green banking practices of the banking
institutions in Bangladesh. On the basis of review of literature it is clear that
majority of research papers focused on green products of banks, benefits and
challenges of green banking and green banking practices of some selected Indian
banks. The present research study emphasizes on use of green banking products
and green banking practices initiated by top three public and private sector banks.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

SBI Bank is one of the most famous bank in India. The various products and
services offered by bank include:
PRODUCT
 Deposits(saving account and current account)
 Loans
 Card
SERVICES
 ATM
 Mobile banking
 Internet banking

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To evaluate the use of Green Banking Products in banking sector.
2. To examine green banking initiatives by SBI Bank.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In order to make the project paper more meaningful and presentable, data is
collected from many sources. The data collection sources can be accumulated two
sources. Majority of the information was collected from secondary sources. The
study is based on secondary data source; collected data and information have been
processed and analyzed systematically. This project paper has been prepared by
latest data to make the study more informative and useful. The primary data
collected from officers, supervisors, clients. The secondary data and information
were collected from
• Journal
• Books
• Newspaper
• Internet
• Annual Report
• SBI Bank Publication
Limitations of the Study
During the completion of this project paper, numerous problems have been
encountered for the accomplishment of the study. These problems may be termed
as limitation of the study, enumerated as follows:
 Time frame for the research was very limited. The actual survey was done
within assort period.
 Unavailability of written documents as require for making a comprehensive
study.
 Some supportive materials were not available during the completion of my
project paper i.e. PC, Internet facility etc.