Sustainable Green Banking Approach: The Need of the Hour

Green banking means combining operational improvements, technology and changing client habits in banking business. It is a win -win situation for all to bring benefits in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Adoption of greener banking practices will not only be useful for environment, but also benefit in greater operational efficiencies, a lower vulnerability to manual errors and fraud, and cost reductions in banking activities. Banks are already offering many of the services necessary for businesses to enjoy these benefits. This paper has made an attempt to highlight the major benefits, confronting challenges, strategic aspects of Green Banking. It has also presented the status of Indian banks as far as Green Banking adoption is concerned. It is found that there has not been much initiative in this regard by the banks in India, though they play an active role in India’s emerging economy. Banks should go green and play a pro -active role to take environmental and ecological aspects as part of their lending principle, which would force industries to go for mandated investment for environmental management, use of appropriate technologies and management systems. They must be more vocal about the inherent green value proposition.