Does ESG Integration Improve Islamic Bank Performance? Evidence from Indonesian Islamic Banking

Nana Nawasiah; Sri Ambarwati; Tri Astuti; Agustinus. W Miranda; Ryan Wijaya

doi:10.32535/ijabim.v11i2.4724

Does ESG Integration Improve Islamic Bank Performance? Evidence from Indonesian Islamic Banking

Nana Nawasiah, Sri Ambarwati, Tri Astuti, Agustinus. W Miranda, Ryan Wijaya

Abstract

Sustainable finance has become a regulatory priority for banking, yet evidence on whether environmental, social, and governance (ESG) integration improves Islamic bank performance is scarce, and conventional ESG ratings rarely capture Shariah-specific value creation. This study develops an ESG-Syariah Index grounded in Maqasid al-Sharia and tests its association with the performance of Indonesian Islamic commercial banks. ESG disclosure was scored through content analysis of annual and sustainability reports for 2021–2024 and merged with financial data, yielding 15–16 bank-year observations for ROA, ROE, NPF, FDR, and BOPO, estimated by panel regression with robust standard errors. The mean ESG-Syariah score is 73.58 (SD = 20.53), indicating uneven adoption. ESG correlates negatively with NPF (r = ?0.474, p < 0.05). Coefficients follow the expected direction for ROA (? = 0.076, p = 0.451), ROE (? = 0.045, p = 0.789), NPF (? = ?0.014, p = 0.793), and BOPO (? = ?0.476, p = 0.771), but none is statistically significant (R² = 0.371–0.920); dimension-level and lagged specifications confirm this pattern. ESG integration therefore shows theoretically consistent but statistically unconfirmed associations.

Keywords

ESG-Syariah Index; Financial Performance; Islamic Banking; Maqasid al-Sharia; Sustainable Finance

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.32535/ijabim.v11i2.4724