Evaluation of banks in the context of sustainable developmentgoals in Türkiye

The exponential rise in consumption following the industrial revolution during the 20th century led to the depletion of natural resources and raised concerns about the potential decline in the quality of life for future generations. To address these challenges and ensure a more sustainable future, the United Nations introduced the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 as a set of overarching principles at a global level. These objectives serve as a comprehensive roadmap for promoting sustainability across various regions worldwide. Within our nation, a participant in the Sustainable Development Goals framework, the banking industry plays an active role in advancing these objectives. This research endeavors to assess the performance of the banking sector within the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and shed light on its current status. By conducting a detailed content analysis of sustainability reports released by Turkish banks, we were able to identify the initiatives undertaken by these financial institutions towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Through the application of the entropy method and the GRI reporting index, two distinct weights were computed based on the content analysis data. These weights were subsequently utilized in Gray Relational Analysis, a Multi-Criteria Decision Making approach, to evaluate and rank banks according to their alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, the findings from the content analysis were leveraged in Data Envelopment Analysis to gauge the sustainability performance of banks. In order to provide a comprehensive overview of the banking sector, the initiatives pursued by banks in line with the Sustainable Development Goals were scrutinized using Spearman Correlation to identify interrelationships among the goals. Additionally, a novel "Scope Score" metric was introduced to quantify the level of engagement of banks in sustainability practices. The study found that the target most prioritized by banks is "SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth", while the least prioritized target is "SDG 14: Life Below Water."