Abstract:
In Sri Lanka, banking industry can be considered as a monopolistic competitive market. Therefore,
both public and private sector banks are following a range of non-price competitive strategies in
order to win the market. In this context, the concept of green banking is becoming a novel
technology oriented strategic initiative for Sri Lankan banks to achieve triple bottom line business
results. Under this circumstances, the banks are basically introducing paperless and information
technology oriented banking services to their existing and prospective customers while promoting
the banks’ role as a responsible corporate citizen towards achieving sustainable development. The
core strategy used in this scenario is the usage of the term “green banking” as a brand positioning
factor where above mentioned set of paperless and information technology oriented banking
services are introduced to its customers. Through this innovation the banks are able to gain cost
effective advantages rather than contributing to the environmental sustainability. Therefore, this
paper is critically reviewing the above scenario by using case study approach while addressing to
the basic question as whether the current green banking initiatives used by Sri Lankan banking
sector are truly contributing to the environmental sustainability or not. The authors are exploring
the above phenomena through a conceptual model and suggest realistic solutions to convert the
Green Banking Strategies to achieve long term sustainable development of both the banking sector
and the environment.
