What are the differences in terms of the declarations introduced by commercial banks regarding sustainability goal programmes, the bank's participation in the reduction of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, the financial support of customers' sustainable businesses, the provision of green loans as part of the financing of pro-environmental business ventures, etc. as important elements in achieving a zero-carbon economy?

The increase in pro-environmental, pro-climate and pro-environmental awareness of citizens is also resulting in a change in business strategy towards increasing the achievement of sustainability goals, producing product and/or service offerings described as green, adding green economy and sustainability issues to the mission of the business entity, etc. of many companies, businesses, financial and public institutions. An increasing number of banks and other financial institutions, with the aim of improving their image in advertising campaigns, on their websites, at events and in public relations activities, are presenting themselves as pursuing sustainable development goals, caring for the future of future generations of citizens and, therefore, their customers, and joining the increasingly widespread trend of pro-climate and pro-environmental actions consisting of business development taking into account the implementation of technological solutions contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. As part of this effort to portray themselves as green financial institutions, some banks and other financial institutions annually organise competitions with financial prizes for startups creating, developing and implementing green technologies and energy eco-innovations facilitating the development of renewable and emission-free energy sources, green technologies enhancing the potential for saving drinking water, eco-innovations facilitating the development of sustainable organic agriculture, green technologies improving the efficiency of waste sorting and recycling processes, the development of electro-mobility, enhancing opportunities for low-carbon construction and other green technologies and eco-innovations that will make it possible to build a zero-carbon, sustainable, green circular economy in the shorter term. The best pro-climate and pro-environmental projects developed and implemented by startups receive funding from banks to increase the capacity and scale of development and business implementation of green technologies and eco-innovations. By organising such competitions, banks and other business entities are building a new image for their business, in which sustainability and green business development are to play an increasingly important role. At the same time, they are explaining on their websites why they are joining the increasingly widespread trend in business to scale up specific sustainability goals and carry out business transformation towards achieving zero carbon. The online promotion of such competitions for the best business implementation of new green technologies and eco-innovations also acts as an advertisement for the institution holding the competition as an entity that has added sustainability to its mission. Despite the lack of a system for full verification of the reliability of such promotional activities and assessment of the level of the implementation of sustainable development goals, the reality of doing green business, and the scale of greenwashing, which is occurring more and more frequently, the prevalence of this trend in business in correlation with the growth of general social pro-climate and pro-environmental awareness of citizens performs many positive functions. Among these many positive functions of the processes outlined above, the lobbying of business in the political sphere plays a particularly positive role, which can also cause pro-environmental and pro-climate changes in the content of laws and other legal norms shaping the functioning of economic entities in the economy, taking into account the growing role of sustainability. Such promotional activities of organising and advertising competitions for green start-ups are an important element of building a green image in a commercial bank and support synergistic activities of developing the green credit offer. Simultaneously carried out various types of activities aimed at supporting the development of green businesses of bank clients, implementation of green technologies by clients, carrying out green business ventures by borrowers, pro-climate investments, etc., can create a kind of added value and increase the effectiveness of the processes of building a new image of an increasingly sustainable bank, implementation of a new green mission, development of a green offer of bank products, etc. In this way, banks and other financial institutions can contribute to accelerating the processes of carrying out a pro-environmental and pro-climate transformation of the classic growth, brown, linear economy of excess to a sustainable, green, zero-carbon growth and closed loop economy. On the other hand, if there is more greenwashing in this kind of activity than reliable implementation of sustainability and green business development, then unfortunately, apart from a kind of repainting of a company's or bank's image in green, there is little real implementation of the green transformation of the economy. There is no institutional system of verification of the level of greenwashing, including the assessment of the reliability of the formulated provisions, the implementation of pro-environmental and pro-climate strategic objectives made by banks and other business entities, the declarations made regarding support, financing the development of green business ventures, financing pro-environmental investments with green loans, etc. The basis for the creation of an institutional system of verification of the level of greenwashing, including the assessment of the reliability of the formulated provisions, declarations of green business development, the level of implementation of the objectives of sustainable development is the issue of a large level of diversity in the scale of activities undertaken by banks and other economic entities to support the development of green businesses developed by customers, as well as the high level of variation in the activities of promoting themselves as green, sustainable business entities and the high level of variation in the declarations introduced by commercial banks regarding programmes for the implementation of sustainable development goals, the bank's participation in the process of reducing emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, the target of achieving a zero-carbon economy and building zero-carbon, sustainable business enterprises.

In view of the above, I address the following question to the esteemed community of scientists and researchers:

What are the differences in the declarations introduced by commercial banks regarding the programmes for the implementation of sustainable development goals, the bank's participation in the process of reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, the financial support of customers' sustainable businesses, the provision of green loans as part of the financing of pro-environmental economic ventures, etc. as important elements for achieving a zero-carbon economy?

What do you think about this topic?

What is your opinion on this subject?

Please respond,

I invite you all to join the discussion,

Thank you very much,

Best wishes,

Dariusz Prokopowicz