ABSTRACT
This research analyzes the upshot of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance on Indian financial return of India's largest four banks, i.e., SBI, Canara, HDFC, and ICICI, during 2017 to 2024. ESG proof was collected from banks' sustainability reports and converted into composite scores and financial performance was measured according to Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Investment (ROI). The research, after descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and panel regression, compares pillar-by-pillar and composite ESG impacts. Findings assure that the ESG performance significantly impacts ROI as well as ROA but significantly on ROI. Environmental performance is closest to ROA, reflecting operating efficiency, and social and governance activities close to ROI, in the context of investor credibility and legitimacy. ESG–finance linkages fluctuate by possession type: durable ESG–finance linkages and puny or ritualistic takeup in public and private banks, respectively. Contributions to the literature include the unbundling of the ESG bits, cross-type of ownership, and stakeholder and legitimacy theory application in Indian banking. Policy responses are differential public and private bank practices in ESG and incentive regulatory regimes for quality disclosure. The restriction was discovered only on the four-bank sample, not lag models, and further work is thus suggested on large samples and dynamic models.
