Environment, social and governance (ESG) and bank loan interest rates

Abstract

因應聯合國提倡永續發展目標，環境保護、社會責任與公司治理（ESG)日益受到企業與資本市場的重視。金融機構亦日漸重視綠色金融，例如：發行綠色債券、投資ESG涉入較高的企業股票和借款給有良好ESG實踐的企業等。然而，商業銀行在放款給企業時，其放款利率是否依企業之ESG績效訂定之，仍需進一步驗證之。本研究以2008年至2019年台灣158家上市櫃企業為樣本，探討企業長期借款利率是否與其ESG績效有關。本文的ESG分數擷取自Refinitiv資料庫，而企業長期借款資料擷取台灣經濟新報(TEJ)資料庫。研究結果發現，不論整體ESG績效，或是個別環境保護、社會責任或公司治理績效表現，皆有助於降低銀行貸款利率，亦即企業若能實踐ESG，將提升企業的信用。然而，當考量企業是否具家族特性，家族企業的干擾效果將弱化ESG績效在企業貸款上所帶來的優勢。本研究考量內生性問題後，其結果依然穩健。

The trends to advocate environment, social and governance (ESG) practices are essential to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations (UN). Financial institutions pay their attention on green finance by issuing green debt, investing in firm stocks with high involvement in ESGs and lending to the firms of good practice on ESG. However, it needs to be verified whether the commercial banks price their corporate loans according to the borrowers’ ESG performance. The paper uses 158 firms listed in Taiwan Stock Exchange as our sample from 2008 to 2019 and investigates whether the long-term loan interests are associated with the ESG scores. We collect the data of ESG scores from Refinitiv database and the data of long-term loan interests from Taiwan Economic Journal. The empirical results indicate that the aggregate ESG, individual environmental, social and governance performance could reduce the cost of bank loans. The higher the borrowing firms’ ESG performance, the lower the loan interest rates. The results imply that the practice of ESG facilitates firms’ creditability. However, as we take family features into account, the moderating effect from the family group weakens the positive effect of ESG performance on loan interest rates. Our results are robust as taking endogeneity into concerns.