HOW INVOLVED ARE BANKS IN ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND PROMOTING SUSTAINABILITY? COMPARATIVE VIEW: ROMANIA AND ICELAND

摘要

For a long time, the issues of environmental protection and sustainability have become important topics of debate around the world, impacting not only the quality of life but also the economic development. Raising awareness on environmental issues and sustainability has also extended to the area of financial and banking decisions. In the vast majority of cases, the banks have relatively slowly and sometimes defensively reacted to these imperatives, preferring to not hinder the financial analysis of companies with additional environmental requirements, arguing that it is not appropriate to demand additional measures to those required by national legislation. Gradually, motivated by the need to regain the confidence of the business environment and communities, to align their strategies with public policies and under the shareholders pressure, banks have begun to consider sustainability requirements by acting to reconcile financial goals with environmental, social and sustainability issues. Our paper focuses on analysing how banks organise the monitoring and observance of the sustainability and environmental protection principles and their embedding in financing decisions. We have also considered a comparative investigation between Romanian and Icelandic banks, based on their annual reports regarding the existence of explicit elements of social and environmental sustainability in the financing activities, and the assessment of the real involvement of these banks in the sustainability and environmental protection issues.