The Impact of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Aspects on Consumers' Equity

Recently, environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors have become an important focus in corporate governance strategies around the world. This study examines how ESG impacts the customer equity of retail banks. This study examines how ESG initiatives affect customer attitudes and the components of customer equity in attitudes. It also examines the impact of customer equity on purchase intention. Within the scope of the study, data were collected from a total of 287 bank customers in Asian countries using a survey method. A partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) test with 10.000 subsamples was conducted to analyze the developed research model and the collected data. The results showed that all three ESG factors - environmental, social, and governance - positively influenced customer attitudes, with governance having the strongest effect. Customer attitudes, in turn, strongly impact value, brands and relationship equity. Value and relationship equity were found to positively influence purchase intention, whereas brand equity did not show a significant effect. This study contributes to advancing the understanding of ESG and customer equity in banking, providing insights for developing sustainable marketing strategies and responsible banking practices. The findings suggest that banks should focus on governance initiatives as primary drivers of customer equity and purchase intent. This study has implications for banking practitioners in prioritizing ESG efforts and policymakers in promoting sustainable banking frameworks. While limited to the retail banking context, this study offers a foundation for future research exploring these relationships in other settings. Furthermore, the study contributes to the limited empirical evidence on the relationship between ESG and customer behavior.