The nexus between environmental and financial performance: Evidence from gulf cooperative council banks

The paper examines the impact of banks environmental performance on their financial and market performance. We collect data from 56 gulf cooperative council (GCC) banks for the period 2010–2019. We apply ordinary least square (OLS), fixed effect, and generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation techniques and show that GCC banks' environmental performance negatively affects their accounting performance. The results, however, exhibit no significant impact of banks' environmental performance on market performance. Moreover, conventional banks have better environmental performance than their Islamic counterparts. Our results are consistent across different estimation techniques after controlling for endogeneity issues. The findings of the study are novel and offer important policy implications for management, regulatory authority, and environmental activists.