From Periphery to Core: Comparative Insights and Integrated Pathways for Sustainability in Banking

This chapter presents a comparative analysis of four Icelandic banks and selectively integrates a holistic sustainability framework to highlight key components of successful ESG implementation. By examining variations in strategic alignment, governance, data infrastructure, and cultural dynamics, the chapter identifies both divergence in institutional pathways and convergence around core principles of effective integration. While all banks operate under similar regulatory frameworks, their structural responses to sustainability reflect different interpretations of risk, legitimacy, and opportunity. The cases illustrate how structure, leadership, and culture interact to move sustainability from the margins to the core of institutional strategy. This chapter compares institutional responses across four case banks and integrates a conceptual lens drawn from a six-pillar framework for ESG integration. These pillars of strategic alignment, distributed ownership, data infrastructure, cultural coherence, capacity building, and project-based implementation serve as touchstones for evaluating how sustainability is operationalized in a given context. Using this framework, the chapter links specific organizational practices to broader patterns of institutional maturity and adaptive capacity.