Analyzing the Role of Banks in Providing Green Finance for Retail Customers: The Case of Germany

Abstract

Our study investigates the role of banks in mobilizing investments in the energy transition with German retail customers. Based on a screening of a representative sample of 329 banks and follow-up in-depth interviews with 12 sector experts, our study shows that there are hardly any sustainable finance products offered. This is due to high transaction costs, missing information about energy projects and missing financial products which allow the bundling of small deposits and de-risking. To develop market supply for this segment, sector experts call for increased transparency in clean energy projects. Standardized, comprehensive and comparable labels or certifications for financial products seem to be necessary to lower uncertainty barriers with retail customers. EU action such as the Taxonomy Regulation is seen as necessary, but not sufficient to meet this demand. The German case delivers insights for other countries in Europe and globally, as sustainability finance challenges all signatories of the Paris Climate Agreement.

The Impact of Green Finance on the Sustainability Performance of the Banking Sector in Palestine: The Moderating Role of Female Presence

“…Scholars have discerned that entities that employed green finance techniques performed better in terms of sustainability than those that did not (Fashli et al 2019;Ringel and Mjekic 2023;Zhou et al 2020). Another study discovered that green bond issuers typically outperform non-green bond issuers in terms of environmental performance (Liu and Wu 2023).…”

“…A wealth of studies substantiates this notion. Moreover, a comprehensive exploration of the available literature reveals that green finance can bolster banks' sustainability endeavors by incentivizing investment in environmentally friendly projects and sustainable development (Endrikat et al 2021;Fashli et al 2019;Khan et al 2023Khan et al , 2022Nechaev et al 2017;Oyegunle and Weber 2015;Pasupuleti and Ayyagari 2023;Qi 2021;Rahman et al 2022;Ringel and Mjekic 2023;Chen et al 2018).…”

The Impact of Green Finance on Carbon Emissions in China: An Energy Consumption Optimization Perspective

“…They discovered that after 2012, the debt financing and new investment of heavily polluting enterprises markedly decreased, indicating that green finance can force polluting enterprises to undergo green transformation. Ringe et al [45] argued that green financial products play a key role in attracting private capital, which in turn attracts private capital to clean energy projects. Li et al [46] conducted least square estimation and the Granger causality test in 129 countries from 1980 to 2011, and discovered that both in the short term and the long term, green finance will restrain increases in carbon emissions.…”

Incremental Green Investment Rule Induction Using Intelligent Rough Sets from an Energy Perspective

“…On the other hand, big data has the ability to increase the pace and volume of knowledge creation. In the big data world, investment data may be added because of multiple decision-making factors related to return on investment, with attention being paid to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) values in investing [25,26]. Consequently, the evaluation criteria have an impact on decision-making when further facts are added.…”