Assessing the relationship between environmental performance and banks' performance : preliminary evidence

The question of whether it pays to be green has been addressed by many studies, but despite the growing number of works, the debate about the relationship between environmental performance, environmental disclosure, and banks' performance is still unresolved, and mixed results have been found. This work explored the relationship between environmental disclosure, environmental performance, and financial performance by using a sample of 57 EU15 listed banks. Moreover, by applying the value relevance methodology, we analyzed the relationship between market values, environmental disclosure, and environmental performance. Our findings reveal strong evidence of the value relevance of environmental disclosure.