Fostering Sustainable Environmental Performance Through Green Banking Practices: The Mediating Role of Employees’ Green Motivation and Green Behavior

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper creates a conceptual framework to examine how these practices—employee-oriented, operation-oriented, and customer-focused—relate to the environmental performance of banks, improved that employees' green motivation and behavior mediate the link between green banking practices and a bank's environmental performance, significantly enriching the current literature on green banking practices.But the paper needs some improvement before acceptance for publication, my detailed comments are as follows:

• The abstract only mentions using PLS software to analyze data. It would be beneficial to specify the exact research methods employed in the article to enhance the transparency and credibility of the study.
• The abstract merely states “employees' green motivation and behavior mediate the link between green banking practices and a bank's environmental performance. ” The description of the research findings in the abstract could be appropriately expanded.It would be advantageous to specify the exact type or direction of the intermediary role to provide a clearer understanding of the study's findings.
• The overall structure of the Introduction is clear. Since the focus of the article is on the impact of green banking practices on environmental performance in the context of private banking in Bangladesh, there is a lack of detailed description of the specific policy environment and current development status of green banking practices in the country.
• The Introduction mentions that the study is conducted "in the context of the private banking sector in Bangladesh" but the article does not adequately discuss the reasons for choosing the private banks of that country as the focus of the research.
• In Section 2.2 of the Literature Review, although a brief review of the specific implementation methods of employee-related green practices is provided, there is a lack of a systematic literature review of how employee-related green practices improve banks' environmental performance by enhancing employees' environmental awareness and behaviors.
• In the Methods section, the article selects the PLS-SEM model as the primary method for data analysis, but it does not provide a sufficient introduction to the PLS-SEM method, which is necessary for readers to fully understand the research methodology and analysis process. Therefore, it is suggested that the authors add an introduction to the empirical process of the PLS-SEM model in the article and explain the reasons for choosing this method.
• In Section 3.2 "Measurement of Variables" of the Methods, the authors provide a brief description of the sources of questions and the scaling methods used for the research variables in the survey. However, the description of how the survey questions were formulated to capture the research variables is not specific enough. It is recommended that the authors provide the specific questions from the questionnaire used to measure the core explanatory variables, and explain how these questions are closely linked to the research variables. This will enable readers to better understand how each variable is derived, and thereby assess the quality and applicability of the questionnaire, which will help enhance the credibility of the study.
• In Section 3.3 ‘Demographic Profile’ of the Methods, it would be advisable to use pie charts or bar charts to visually present the demographic information of the survey respondents, such as the distribution characteristics of age, educational level, and work experience, enriching the content of the article.
• In Section 5.1, the study concludes that "employee green motivation mediated the connection between employee- and customer-related green practices and banks’ environmental performance. Nonetheless, it failed to mediate the link between operation-related practices and a bank's environmental performance. " This conclusion is of great significance for understanding how green banking practices influence bank environmental performance. However, the article does not sufficiently explore why the mediating effect between operation-related practices and bank environmental performance is not supported.
• In Section 5.1, the article points out that These results contradict previous studiest, and speculates that the reason may be due to the limited knowledge of green banking among the bank employees selected for the survey, as well as insufficient environmental training and education. However, in Section 5.4, where the study's limitations are discussed, there is no summary analysis of potential issues in sample selection bias, data collection, and the analysis process. To enhance the reliability and validity of the research findings, it is suggested that the authors propose methods for optimizing sample selection in future research and discuss how such selection can enhance the generalizability and applicability of the research results.

Author Response

Please refer to the attachment. Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Using PLS-SEM, this study offers a timely empirical examination of green banking practices (GBPs) and their impact on environmental performance in Bangladesh’s banking sector, which is often neglected in the literature. My concerns and comments are as follows.

1. The conclusions are overly intuitive and lack groundbreaking insights. "customer-related green practices directly improve environmental performance" aligns with prior studies, while the mediation role of EGM/EGB merely reiterates well-established theories. The study fails to uncover nuanced mechanisms or contextual factors unique to Bangladesh’s banking sector, limiting its theoretical contribution to the literature.
2. The study’s theoretical framework suffers from redundancy. The "employee-related green practices" construct inherently overlaps with the proposed mediating variable, "employee green behavior". Therefore, it will be more intriguing to explore the differences in the influences of the three aspects of green practices on environmental performance.
3. Regarding the measurement, while the authors mention adapting scales from prior studies, they omit critical details about item adaptation, cultural validation, and relevant testing. This lack of transparency raises concerns about measurement.

Author Response

Please refer to the attachment. Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article explores an important topic. The authors formulated 16 hypotheses, all of which were tested using an appropriate econometric methodology. The variables were well-selected, the paper is well-organized and clearly written. It includes all the essential components of a scientific article. My only comments are as follows:

• The number of hypotheses (16) may be too high. This creates a dense structure. Some of them could be combined for clarity.

• The discussion section could be further developed, linking the study results with more amount of prior researches on the topic

• A robustness check of the results could be considered

Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript.

Author Response

Please refer to the attachment. Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

You have addressed my concerns over the contribution and the methodology in this study. 

Thanks.