Achieving financial sustainability in Ghana’s banking sector: is environmental, social and governance reporting contributive?

Abstract

Despite banks not having any significant direct negative impacts on the environment and society, they adopt environmental, social and governance (ESG) accounting. Meanwhile, ESG reporting consumes additional resources and exposes firms’ strategies to competitors. The study employed a legitimacy theory to investigate the impact of ESG reporting on the financial sustainability of banks in Ghana. The study relied on 10 years of annual reports of all the banks in Ghana. The banks’ ESG reporting practices were assessed based on a content analysis method. The financial sustainability was measured based on return on assets (ROA) and net interest margin (NIM). Evidence showed that environmental reporting (ERI) impacted the banks’ NIM and ROA inversely and significantly, whilst governance reporting had a positive but insignificant relationship with NIM and ROA. The result further demonstrated that social reporting (SRI) impacted NIM and ROA positively and significantly. The overall ESG reporting had a negative and significant relationship with the banks’ financial sustainability. Hence, the ESG reporting did not improve the financial sustainability of banks, and banks in Ghana have less of an incentive to report on ESG as opposed to banks in other countries, where such reporting generally makes financial sense. </jats:p>