Corporate Social Responsibility as the Pathway to Sustainable Banking: A Systematic Literature Review

Social and environmental sustainability challenges have led researchers to concentrate on sustainable banking and corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. CSR aspects that are used for sustainable banking are explored, evaluated and summarized by limited literature. This study aims at identifying and summarizing the theories and the CSR dimensions used in sustainable banking related studies. The study critically analyzed 30 relevant documents that were systematically extracted from the Web of Science and Scopus databases covering the period of 2012 to 2022. The results show that researchers’ concentration on sustainable banking increased after the declaration of the Paris agreement and sustainable development goals (SDGs) in 2015 and 2016, respectively, where the majority of studies highlight the Asian and European contexts. The study identifies 14 theories and 28 CSR dimensions for sustainable banking. Based on those dimensions, the study proposes a model of sustainable banking. Later, it maps the relevant theories with the CSR dimensions so that future researchers can experiment with those theories and dimensions with sustainable banking in different contexts. Moreover, the study recommends that researchers can focus more on organizational change and risk management theories, and CSR dimensions that integrate social and environmental issues, as well as SDGs.