Financial Access and Sustainable Green Development in Bangladesh's Private Sector
A sequential-mediation study examining how financial access may translate into sustainable green development through proxy-based green finance utilization and ESG adoption.
From financial access to sustainable outcomes.
The project investigates whether finance contributes to sustainability directly or through a chain of organizational mechanisms.
This study examines the relationship between financial access and sustainable green development among formal private firms in Bangladesh.
The central idea is that access to finance may not automatically create sustainability. Instead, firms may need to convert finance into green-oriented investment and then into ESG capability.
Sustainable green development is represented through environmental, economic and social performance, following a triple-bottom-line perspective.
The study uses the World Bank Enterprise Survey Bangladesh 2022 to test this conversion-chain model.
Project Snapshot
The conversion chain.
The framework proposes an ordered pathway from financial resources to sustainable firm performance.
Finance enables deployment, deployment may build ESG capability, and ESG capability is associated with sustainable performance.
How the study was analyzed.
Secondary Data
The study uses World Bank Enterprise Survey Bangladesh 2022 firm-level data.
998 Firms
The analytical sample covers formal private manufacturing and service-sector firms.
Robust OLS
Regression models use HC1 heteroskedasticity-consistent standard errors.
Mediation
Indirect effects were evaluated using 5,000 bootstrap resamples.
What the models revealed.
The results suggest that finance matters, but its relationship with sustainability is more nuanced than a simple direct effect.
Financial Access → SGD
SupportedFinancial access was positively associated with sustainable green development.
Financial Access → GFU
SupportedFinancial access was strongly associated with proxy-based green finance utilization.
GFU → SGD
Not SupportedGreen-finance utilization alone did not significantly predict sustainable outcomes.
Financial Access → ESG
Not SupportedFinancial access alone was not significantly associated with ESG adoption.
ESG → SGD
SupportedESG adoption showed a strong positive association with sustainable green development.
GFU → ESG
SupportedProxy-based green finance utilization was positively associated with ESG adoption in the primary model.
The full sequential mediation pathway was supported.
Neither green-finance utilization nor ESG adoption worked as a significant single mediator alone. However, the ordered pathway from financial access through green-finance utilization and ESG adoption to sustainable green development was statistically supported.
What I learned from the project.
Financial access matters.
Firms with stronger financial access showed stronger sustainable green-development outcomes.
Finance alone is insufficient.
Simply deploying finance did not automatically translate into stronger sustainability performance.
ESG capability appears important.
ESG adoption was one of the strongest correlates of sustainable green development.
Sustainability works as a chain.
The findings suggest that finance becomes more meaningful when converted into investment deployment and organizational ESG capability.
What this project added to my toolkit.
This project was completed as academic coursework for Applied Decision Modeling. It is presented as a course research project rather than a peer-reviewed publication. Because the dataset is cross-sectional, the findings are interpreted as associations rather than causal effects.
Explore more of my research.
This project is part of my growing portfolio in Business Analytics, sustainability and applied quantitative research.
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