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An Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability Reporting Assessment in the Greek Banking Sector

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Professionals' Perspectives of Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

This paper aims to examine implementation of CSR in the banking sector by means of an analysis of the incorporation of environmental and social concerns into financial institutions’ decision-making, in order to evaluate the content of annual environmental (social or sustainability) reports published by Greek banks. It also analyses the various reporting strategies Greek banks adopt, as well as the emerging trends they tend to follow. A sustainability report assessment was implemented according to scoring systems based on the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines and the Deloitte Touché Tohmatsu sustainability reporting scorecard. The study has identified the fact that Greek banks finished in exactly the same position in the overall ranking with both scoring systems. However, the GRI requirements are very demanding for Greek banks while they seem to cover a greater number of the Deloitte Touché Tohmatsu requirements. The paper concludes by reporting on future CSR trends of the Greek banking sector, especially in the field of environmental and social strategies, as well as outlines some steps banks need to take in order to promote sustainability and thereby fulfil their stakeholders’ demands.

Economic advance is not the same thing as human progress.

John Clapham, A Concise Economic History of Britain (1957)

For the purpose of this study, the terms environmental reports, social reports, sustainability reports and corporate social responsibility reports are considered simultaneous.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For more detail about the conducted surveys of this category, see Unerman (2000).

  2. 2.

    For more detail about the criteria of these guidelines see Morhardt et al. (2002).

  3. 3.

    However, it is very interesting to note that Wiseman (1982) and Morhardt (2001) have clearly stated that scoring methods are not connected with corporate environmental performance.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environment, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece

    Konstantinos I. Evangelinos & Antonis Skouloudis

  2. Department of Environmental Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, Greece

    Ioannis E. Nikolaou

  3. Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

Authors
  1. Konstantinos I. Evangelinos
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  2. Antonis Skouloudis
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  3. Ioannis E. Nikolaou
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  4. Walter Leal Filho
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. London Metropolitan Business School, London Metropolitan University, Moorgate 84, London, EC2M 6SQ, United Kingdom

    Samuel O. Idowu

  2. Wissenschaften Hamburg, Hochschule für Angewandte, Lohbruegger Kirchstr. 65, Hamburg, 21033, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

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Evangelinos, K.I., Skouloudis, A., Nikolaou, I.E., Filho, W.L. (2009). An Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability Reporting Assessment in the Greek Banking Sector. In: Idowu, S., Leal Filho, W. (eds) Professionals' Perspectives of Corporate Social Responsibility. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02630-0_9

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