Major CSR related problems of purpose, and motivation arise in top teams, and these have harmful impacts throughout financial firms. There have been issues of negative CSR related Behaviors and policies by top teams, and their harmful impact on employee Behavior, with subsequent harmful impact on customers. These harms arise in conjunction with problems of understanding the social and knowledge infrastructure of the firm, especially with invisibility of intangibles during rapid change.

Several authors have identified these difficulties in implementing CSR policies in core activities in financial firms (Thompson and Cowton, 2004; Scholtens, 2009; Wu and Shen, 2013; Tran, 2014; Avery, 2016). Financial firms face knowledge-based problems of communication when reporting on CSR, climate change, and financial value creation, (Gray et al., 2001; Michelon et al., 2015; Avery, 2016).

Historic problems arose in firms such as RBS and Wells Fargo due, in part, to top team ignorance, indifference, or hypocrisy about CSR. The GFC showed how knowledge and perceptual barriers in top teams arose from ideological positions, short-term views, and dominance of conventional finance theory focussed on shareholder wealth (Holland, 2019a). Problems have emerged in clarifying a combined CSR and financial purpose of firms. This creates conflicts between CSR and financial performance aims and varies with CSR motivation. For example, Wu and Shen (2013) note three CSR motives in US banks, namely, strategic choices, altruism, and greenwashing. They find the relationship between CSR and financial performance is positive, non-negative, and non-existent, for each specific motive.

Other top team and employee knowledge-based barriers exist for financial firms undertaking CSR programs. Tran (2014) noted problems of understanding costs and benefits prevented Chinese banks from engaging in CSR. They include financial costs of CSR and difficulty of measuring benefits, financial or social. The absence of a national policy and regulatory structure with sanctions and incentives were key barriers. These problems are expected to decline with UN (UNIDO, 2019), and EU (2011) CSR leadership. They are expected to decline with collaboration amongst financial firms to develop principles on CSR practices, costs, benefits, and impacts (e.g., PRB, 2019).

However, climate change, COVID-19, and technology change reveal how problems continue to arise in implementing CSR ideas with employees and customers. For example, Fancy (2021) as ex head of sustainability at Blackrock expressed considerable skepticism about practitioners and market forces setting the rules of the game in areas of ESG (Environmental. Social, Governance) and closely associated CSR issues. In his experience at the heart of one of the largest investment “machines,” fund managers managing ESG funds were still dominated by short term financial incentives, and nearly always chose the wealth gain over the ESG gain (Rushe, 2021). This prioritization of finance can crowd out prosocial Behavior (Bénabou and Tirole, 2006) and create harm for employees, customers, and stakeholders. CSR and Net Zero oriented intrinsic motivation and action is crowded out by finance only extrinsic incentives. Section How Change Behavior in Financial Firms to be CSR and Net Zero Oriented? explores how this can be ameliorated.

There are many ongoing problems of balancing shareholder wealth aims and stakeholder CSR aims, especially with employees. Pay and inequality issues within financial firms create perceptions of significant harm being created to employees and citizens. Pay gaps between top teams and employees is very high in financial firms such as in top ten US banks, “that pose the greatest risks to our financial system, the average pay gap was 265 to 1 in 2017. Among the four giants at the top, the average ratio was 319 to 1” (Anderson and Wakamo, 2018). Despite public and political pressure, top teams still mobilize shareholders to defend them against external pressures and support them on pay and top team incentive schemes (Anderson and Wakamo, 2018). The gender pay gap is a major issue. Wright (2018) analyzed the gender pay gap data at nearly 400 firms from across the UK financial services industry and commented that the, “..financial services sector performs worse than the rest of the economy on every aspect of gender pay gap reporting.”

COVID-19 in 2020–2021 accelerated digitisation processes in financial firms. This raised CSR issues concerning employees. Increases in “social distancing,” remote working, and video communication, and workload, changed working experience of all employees. Some of this is welcome by employees in terms of work-life balance, gaining some control over the location and timing of work (Jones, 2021). Some of this change is not welcome. Firms may experience major problems in safeguarding employee wellbeing and being conscious of physical and mental health issues in a “work at home” world. They may experience problems in ensuring employees are engaged and motivated and in monitoring safety of employees (Jones, 2021). Employees may face wage reductions, increased pay gaps, and lose their jobs as productivity is increased, and gains appropriated by top teams and shareholders. If this exacerbates pay, gender and diversity inequality, then much harm will be done to social sustainability. This is a major CSR challenge for financial firms. If top teams in financial firms wish to achieve their CSR aims and avoid “CSRwash,” they must articulate clear policy about change, and how it varies with different tasks and teams such as top teams, middle management, customer facing functions, back office, risk-management, and market facing trading divisions. They must engage with employees to reflect new employee work preferences, whilst sharing productivity gains between finance capital, top teams, employees, and stakeholders. Section How Change Behavior in Financial Firms to be CSR and Net Zero Oriented? explores how engagement can occur.

Financial firms continue to exploit technology change pressures—with new strategies designed to reduce costs, hold onto the existing customer base, and maximize the financial value of products sold and delivered. Such rapid change creates perceptions of significant harm being created to customers in key segments. They occur as they experience a world dominated by digital transacting, increased complexity, costs, and risks. In contrast financial firms create more power over customers, reducing their costs and risks, and increasing profits. In banks (Rawstorne, 2015), this has involved strategies such as “automating” branches with series of “smart” self-service machines supported by “experts” via phone or video. The main job of “experts” is to accustom customers to using the new technology to complete transactions, acquire information for the firms, and encourage customers to transfer to internet banking and more products. This approach transfers “processing” tasks and risks to customers.

Rawstorne (2015) notes that “Banks claim they are making the lives of tech-savvy customers easier….But most customers find the machines deeply irritating and alienating.” From customer perspectives, this is a prelude to more dramatic change. As customer use of the automated branch falls and they migrate to smart phones, card use, and full internet banking, the bank can justify closing branches and ATMs, removing paper statements, and force customers to use card or “smart phone” services (payments, account statements etc). The bank limits customer choice (channel use, mode of processing transactions, products, and services) to bank defined technology alternatives.

The experience of COVID-19 during 2020–2022 accelerated the digitisation process as “social distancing,” remote working, and video communication, changed the experience of all age groups. In banks, this led to increased productivity through drastic reduction in use of cash, accelerated bank branch closures, and increased use of internet banking. Banks may argue this intensifies their focus on customers and increases the trends to ethical and responsible banking. Rolfe (2020) found technology change during COVID-19 accelerated erosion of consumer trust in banks. Financial firms focus on economic gains and take benefits and transfer costs when interacting with customers. This shows a failure in relating CSR values to dominant financial values. From the bank perspective the increased “digitisation” increases the profitability of the economic relationship, with retail customers and small businesses such as restaurants. The lack of:alternative payment means, competition between banks on cost of payments, and banning of surcharges (EU, 2015); means that banks transfer extra cost (over cash) into prices to customers to protect margins.

The rapid shift to digitized services, and increased software complexity in aging systems, has also created IT vulnerabilities in terms of IT failures, service outages, and IT errors. IT problems at RBS, Nationwide, HSBC, Barclays, TSB, Tesco bank, and Lloyds from 2012 to 2018 reflect this. These IT vulnerabilities have in turn created new opportunities for fraud and hacker attacks. Aldasoro et al. (2021) reported that financial firms were hit by hackers relatively more often than other sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Customers faced costs of such outcomes immediately and have often been blamed for problems. They rely on Ombudsmen, Regulators, and CSOs such as UK consumer champion “Which?” to defend them—rather than banks correcting problems and paying compensation immediately. Social responsibility to customers has been a low priority despite the banks effectively forcing customers to migrate to digital banking. However, in 2019 the major banks covering many UK customers adopted a voluntary code of conduct requiring them to refund fraud victims in full if they have shown reasonable diligence (Shaw, 2019).

Such CSR related problems can lead directly to financial risk and financial value problems for financial firms (EBA, 2021). This demonstrates the need to jointly consider—interactions between—non-financial resources and financial resources—and between CSR and financial aims. A failure in achieving CSR outcomes and product delivery, leading to harm to customers and employees; can damage relations and reputation with customers, reduce motivation and capabilities of employees; and impair financial functions of financial firms. It can reduce a firm's ability to secure financial resources (say deposits) and impair the ability to allocate them to new lower risk and higher financial margin products (say providing loans to existing customers).

There are recent examples of financial firms such as Wells Fargo (in 2010–2016) exploiting change opportunities to develop huge knowledge, informational and transactional power relative to retail and small business customers and then using these capabilities in irresponsible, unethical, and fraudulent ways. The Wells Fargo case (Avery, 2016) shows how vulnerable financial firms are to threats to their financial reputation once unethical Behavior is revealed (Thompson and Cowton, 2004). The RBS case in the GFC and Wells Fargo case reflect bank misuse of their power, knowledge, and transactional advantages over customers; to reduce immediate costs for the banks, boost profits, and fail to deliver their CSR promise to customers. This hypocrisy and deceit are short sighted given the long-term reputational costs for banks and loss of friendly direct contact with customers (Thompson and Cowton, 2004). Hence financial firms pay increasing attention to reputational and relationship risks caused by CSR related errors or misBehavior which affect confidence in supply and use of financial resources (Carnevale and Mazzuca, 2012). COVID-19, climate change, and CSR change pressures have posed new issues and financial risks for financial firms (EBA, 2021).

This section discusses the first part of the strategic “change narrative”. This explores how changes at the “Head” of the firm, are strategic means to respond to potential and actual harm caused by problems of top team ignorance, indifference, or hypocrisy about CSR and climate change.

The “change narrative” starts with how external climate change and CSR change pressures are driving learning and strategic changes at board and executive team levels in “learning organizations” (Pedler et al., 1997) in case firms such as NatWest (Rose, 2020a,b) and Schroders (Harrison and Leppard, 2020), and in peer groups alliances such as GFANZ (2021) or PRI (2020). In the case of climate change and CSR change pressures (Mirfenderesk, 2009), top teams are learning how to develop adaptive strategic plans and strategic choices to develop resilient firms capable of managing the new risks, and to continue to deliver their core financial functions and performance in the economy. As noted by Porter and Kramer (2011), firms have embarked on strategic efforts to create shared value by reconceiving the intersection between society and corporate performance and rethinking “value.”

This involves top teams (“Head”) “looking out” to learn (Pedler et al., 1997) how the increasingly intense change pressures are changing the nature of Net Zero and CSR change in firms. They learn how external change and problematic internal predisposition contributed to problems in financial firms in recent history (see Section What Are CSR Problems and Harms in Financial Firms—Historic, Continuing?) and create new strategic opportunities and threats (Porter, 1985). Top teams are actively engaging with, and learning from, peer groups, elites, and shareholders in the financial community, and from stakeholders in wider society. They learn about risk, uncertainty, and complexity induced by climate change and CSR change pressures, biodiversity concerns, technology change, and their physical risks. This is the basis to learn about transition risks arising from political and regulatory changes. They develop the “rules of the game” (Bourdieu, 1990) and shared “capitals” and “habitus” in the finance community on how to avoid harm to humans and environment.

The first part of the change narrative also involves “Looking in” learning (Pedler et al., 1997) and concerns learning by top teams and other teams. Top teams learn and make strategic choices about new enabling infrastructure and conditions with new sustainable advantages and resilient dynamic capabilities in their firms (Fiksel, 2003; Souza et al., 2017). They learn how to change Net Zero and CSR orientation of critical internal factors in the firm and their predispositions. They make the changes together in an incremental adaptive way over time (Matthews, 2018; Larsen, 2021). Top teams, employees and their teams are using these learning opportunities and experiences to develop shared dynamic capabilities and resilience (Teece, 2007; Ortiz-de-Mandojana and Bansal, 2016) in CSR and Net Zero oriented resources in the firm. The adapted resources include knowledge intensive capabilities and social infrastructure (intangibles) and technology (tangibles). The latter formed intellectual capital (Meritum, 2002) in the firm, in teams and individuals.

Top management in these “Learning organizations” (Pedler et al., 1997) seek knowledge to support new thinking to strategically allocate capital (financial, intangible, technology) to create an effective Net Zero and CSR oriented organization. They are thinking how to reorganize the “Head.” Pathan (2009) showed how, in US banks, CEO power to control board decisions, negatively affected bank risk-taking. This was evident in the GFC when CEOs and “dominant coalitions” (Cyert and James, 1963) in RBS and BOS took extreme risks and failed (Holland, 2010). Corporate governance reform recognized this power must be counterbalanced in new boards and executive teams (FCA, 2015, 2021).

Thus, a priority area is for top teams (“Head”) to change the “Head” and avoid harm caused by the “Head.” They “look in” and learn how to make changes in top teams (“Head”) in terms of governance, composition, diversity and capabilities of boards and executive teams (Ethical Finance Conference, 2018, 2019, 2020). These create top team capabilities to develop a consensus view based on challenge in their debate about climate change and CSR and about harm in the firm and externally. They create capabilities to manage these risks and deliver core financial functions and financial value. This informs strategic choices about the Net Zero and CSR purpose and orientation of firms, and about performance metrics for achieving Net Zero and CSR outcomes in firms such as NatWest and Schroders (Harrison, 2020; Rose, 2020a,b). They learn how to change top team Behavior and create a “tone from the top,” as part of the means to promote “Change awareness activities” amongst all employees.

Shen et al. (2016) find that CSR oriented banks overwhelmingly outperform non-CSR banks in terms of return on assets and return on equity. This suggests that those bank top teams that collaborate and learn, internally and externally, about CSR policies, are more likely to create additional financial value than those who do not collaborate. Such external collaboration and collective action on CSR are essential given the likelihood of considerable variation possible between financial firms on strategic change (Zimmermann, 2019). This is basis to agree on common actions that build financial stability and resilience in a complementary way with climate change and CSR resilience.

Top team practitioners such as Vaccoro (2019) of Triodos bank (Triodos Bank, 2019) and Haresnape (2018) of Gatehouse Bank (Ethical Finance Conference, 2019) are aware they must avoid negative Behaviors and attitudes manifest in the GFC and cases such as Well Fargo (Avery, 2016). Top teams must avoid creating a negative climate change and CSR change “tone” to organizational factors such as: hierarchical power relations, culture, team spirit, shared knowledge, internal communication and feedback systems, control systems, incentive schemes and many other elements. They must avoid these organizational factors creating a negative “team spirit” in the wider firm and specialist decision teams about combined Net Zero, CSR, and financial aims. Rice (2019) argued that individuals at all levels in financial firms must ask what they can do to change their Behavior and activities to avoid such problems and harms. Employees at all levels must be persuaded to buy into change ideas and new aims to change their mindset.

This learning at the top also requires critical thinking in top teams in financial firms about the dominance of conventional finance theory, shareholder wealth aims and short-termism. Stakeholder theory (Donaldson, 1995) and literature on corporate legitimacy (Power, 2003; Preda, 2005) can help top teams develop their ideas. Financial firms require ideas from this external debate to be diffused through the firm and employed at the point of financial decisions and discussion about potential harms. This requires incentives to reflect the new relationship between of climate change, CSR, and financial aims. They must avoid “crowding out” pro-social Behavior based on Net Zero and CSR aims (Bénabou and Tirole, 2006) by continuing and intense financial pressures. Net Zero and CSR oriented intrinsic motivation must not be crowded out by finance only extrinsic incentives.

Given change pressures, diverse boards with such clear climate change and CSR purpose, and explicit performance metrics, are expected to improve performance—Net Zero, CSR and financial—and reduce harm to people and environment. This reflects findings in the literature. Change in top team areas such as, gender and knowledge diversity of leaders and in boards of banks is associated with environmental performance (Birindelli et al., 2018, 2019). Jizi et al. (2013) found evidence that US bank board independence and board size, the two board governance characteristics “usually associated with the protection of shareholder interests, are positively related to CSR disclosures.” Kilic et al. (2015) found that CSR reporting of banks improved during 2008 to 2112, and this was associated with size, ownership diffusion, board composition and board diversity.

The “House” metaphor is used to explore the second part of the change narrative. This shows how top teams in financial firms make CSR and Net Zero oriented change to the firm “socio-technical” context (Mumford, 2000; Mitleton-Kelly, 2003) made up, inter alia, of organization structure, culture, knowledge, and technology. These “House” changes influence working conditions, Behavior of employee, customers, and stakeholders. They are intended to reduce problems and harms arising from dysfunctional socio-technical structures.

The case financial firms “look in” and learn (Pedler et al., 1997) how combinations of “House” intangibles and tangibles can be adapted for CSR and Net Zero aims and integrated in financial firm business models (IIRC, 2013). These changes are strategically matched to changes in the external environment concerning CSR pressures and climate change. They are designed to develop resilience in the face of uncertainty (Teece et al., 1997) and to influence Behavior, financial practices, and decisions throughout firms.

Net Zero strategic change involves greening of internal physical operations, offices, and transport systems by financial firms. It involves allocation of financial capital to customers from carbon into green energy and implementing GFANZ proposals (2021) to achieve Net Zero aims. CSR strategic change supports a shift to CSR oriented financial practices with employees, customers, and stakeholders. It involves allocation of financial capital to customers with high reputation for their CSR oriented Behavior with their customers and stakeholders. These strategic choices are critical to create information and make financial transactions possible. They create a positive change “atmosphere” in organizational conditions, and their influence on employee Behavior, and on interactions with customers to reduce harm and deliver finance.

Thus, practitioners recognize that deep rooted CSR and Net Zero orientation must be achieved in core “socio-technical” factors and their connections to intensify change influence on individuals and teams. They appreciate that influence of the formal CSR and Net Zero change policy must be continuously supported and strengthened from top teams down to front line employees, whilst maintaining the financial orientation and function of the firm. Top teams in case firms such as NatWest (Rose, 2020a,b), and Schroders (Harrison, 2020) are making it clear that key organizational factors in their “socio-technical” system: such as authority roles and power in the hierarchy and organization, culture, control systems, targets, feedback systems, and incentives; have an explicit CSR and Net Zero orientation intended to reduce harm to people and environment. These top teams use an explicit holistic narrative or systems view of the firm, and its role in financial markets, the real economy and society to communicate their “integrated thinking” (IIRC, 2013; VRF, 2021) to employees.

In the case of CSR this involves top teams communicating how the firm can implement CSR related principles such as PRB (UNEP, 2018), and professional standards (Bogan, 2018). This clarifies the firm's response to intergovernmental CSR pressures (EU, 2011; UNEP, 2018) and pressures from CSOs. In the case of climate change this involves communicating how the firm intends to make contributions to reductions in GHG consistent with Paris 2015. The case firms are making plans for 1 year ahead, 5-year, 10-year, and 30-year horizons consistent with; Paris COP21 (2015) and Glasgow COP26 (2021), TCFD (2017) demands (Net Zero Finance Conference, 2021), and with membership of Net Zero alliances (GFANZ, 2021).

This section use the “Community” metaphor to outline the 3rd part of change narrative. This discusses how individuals and teams experienced CSR and Net Zero change. They seek to avoid harms and create social sustainability in internal and external communities and enhance the occupational health and safety of employees and stakeholders.

This includes change on issues such as employee lived experience, workload, working conditions and contracts, pay gaps, inequality, and diversity. It creates a way to think how to deliver the desired financial products, and risk management, in a way that produces outcomes consistent with CSR, Net Zero and technology outcomes and experiences desired by stakeholders.

Case firms such as NatWest and Schroders use the above dynamics to enhance employee confidence in new CSR and Net Zero aims, structures, and capabilities. They seek to enhance employee states such as—trust and belief in top teams, commitment to financial firm aims, and motivation to act in the desired ways to achieve CSR, Net Zero and financial aims (Harrison, 2020; Rose, 2020a,b) and avoid potential harms. They use these changes in employee Behavior to build trust with customers and develop a CSR and Net Zero orientation to intangibles such as relations, brand, reputation with customers and other external stakeholders. They create a learning, behaving, and harm reduction cycle between employees, customers, and stakeholders in which there was no end (Vaccoro, 2019).

These changes are expected to improve individual and team performance, customer relations, and firm performance. In this regard, Esteban-Sanchez et al. (2017) found that during and after the financial crisis (2005–2010) banks with better employee relations and corporate governance had better corporate financial performance. During the crisis, better relations between employees and the external community were valued positively by investors, which, in turn, increased corporate financial performance.

The use of a “Community” metaphor (Morgan, 1997) provides insights into “lived experience” or “life” of employees, customers and stakeholders involved in CSR and Net Zero change in Behavior in internal and external “communities” or social organizations. It highlights main factors at play and connections to change in the “community.”

From a theory perspective the connected contextual resources, interactions, and CSR and Net Zero awareness activities collectively contribute to social forces which drive agent and team financial decision action in the financial firm and networks relative to financial, CSR and climate change aims. This reflects Silverman's (1970) view that social reality is socially constructed, socially sustained, and socially changed. In Bourdieu's (1990) terms the awareness activities and interactions, within field context, are combined means to structure habitus, expertise, and social and symbolic capitals in new ways. They structure “Head,” “House” and “Community” and their impact on decisions in the financial “Machine.”

This section focuses on the collective impact of “Head” and “House,” and “Community” on financial decisions in the financial “Machine,” They influence the social structure, purpose, values, and “atmosphere” of the financial “Machine.” They influence a hierarchy of decisions in the firm (single, portfolio, firm wide), as well as decision routines used in all these hierarchy levels. This collective system change is means to ensure there are many internal firm CSR and Net Zero pressure points—policy, culture, teams etc—at the point of financial decision making. This prevents falling back into traditional finance logic alone and reduces harms to people and environment.

The paper further develops a conceptual frame in the form of a “Behavioral theory of the financial firm” or BTFF (Holland, 2016, 2019a). This Net Zero and CSR oriented BTFF is an embryonic theory based on a limited set of case and event-based data. Its interdisciplinary analysis is constrained by major problems in the literature concerning financial firms. It reflects the emerging “social finance” turn in the literature and the increased focus on social sustainability when facing climate change and new CSR change pressures. These place the research at the frontier of sustainability research, with all of the problems associated with innovation and new ways of thinking. Despite these limitations, the paper reveals new means for academics, practitioners, and regulators to understand, communicate and act on rapid and complex change such as climate change and new CSR change pressures in financial firms.

The BTFF contributes to employees and stakeholder specialist and unique firm “knowledge of practice.” It indicates how the financial firm and its “Head,” “House,” “Community” and financial “Machine,” can be configured as an integrated system. It reveals how firms can develop capabilities to exploit connections, interaction and resources in these metaphor areas to support financial decision activities, to achieve financial, CSR and Net Zero change aims, and avoid harms.

The BTTF also has many potential uses “to make a difference” in interactions between individual financial firms, and with co-operating agents in the finance system and wider society. The agents include “top teams,” the rest of financial firm, advisory policy bodies, legislators, and regulators. They include civil society organizations (CSOs), customers, employees, citizens, activists, and other stakeholders. The BTFF is means for external stakeholders to learn and develop their demands for change, avoidance of harms, and development of social sustainability. It is a means for managers and stakeholders to enhance engagement and inclusion at multiple levels in the firm and in external networks.

This is a means to deepen stakeholder involvement in change, in financial firms' business model for corporate social responsibility and climate sustainability. It promotes their contributions to discussions about working conditions, management of change, delivery of products, and avoidance of harms to people and environment.

This approach opens the “black box” by illustrating CSR and Net Zero changes in human and social resources inside financial firms (in the socio-technical context) and their relationships to change in working environment and practice. It explores top team, employee, and stakeholder experiences of such change and how they sought to avoid harms.

The above can be further advanced by improved corporate reporting. The CSR and Green BTFF narratives, and ideas from the Integrated reporting framework (IIRC, 2013; VRF, 2021) form a complementary basis for integrated thinking to develop reporting content for integrated reports or < IRs> in financial firms (Torre et al., 2018). Information content concerns value creation, CSR, and Net Zero outcomes, as well as explanation of harm avoidance and development of social sustainability. The above reveals that the BTTF provides a means to think what “Relevant” or “Material information” (IIRC, 2013, p. 5) may mean in financial firms in terms of the “non-financial information directive” (EU, 2014; Baumuller, 2018). This can enhance integrated reporting or < IR> (Torre et al., 2018; VRF, 2021) by showing connections between information on intangibles and financial resources. It can clarify how non-financial information about CSR and Net Zero change is linked with financial information (Baumuller, 2018). These are means to inform a consensus in markets and society on whether the financial firm has delivered complementary CSR, Net Zero and financial outcomes, and is not engaging in “CSRwash” and “Greenwash.” Such improvement in disclosure is crucial to improving legitimacy of the financial firm (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991) with stakeholders (Guthrie and Parker, 1990). This information is critical to add power and momentum to stakeholders when holding financial firms to account.

This study potentially advances the research community's knowledge in literature development, theory construction, and hypothesis testing. These reveal suggestions for further research.

For example, the use of the BTFF in managing CSR and Net Zero change in financial firms, adds to a growing literature on how firms contribute to social sustainability and avoidance of harm (Schönborn et al., 2019). This reflects a wider change where the corporate role in social sustainability to meet the needs of both present and future generations, has become highly significant in politics, society, and the economy, and is a core component of response to global challenges of the future (Sachs, 2012). This paper shows how top teams seek to align collaboratively defined ideas of CSR and net Zero change, and of social sustainability (PRB, 2019; GFANZ, 2021), with ideas of competitiveness. It shows how financial firms seeks to adapt culture and other organizational aspects of “Head,” “House,” “Community” and “Machine,” thus showing consistency with literature on social sustainability (Schönborn et al., 2019). It provides a novel example of such developments in the emerging field of “social finance” (Hirshleifer, 2015).

The Net Zero and CSR oriented BTFF creates new ways of thinking about hypothesis testing. A key empirical question in academic research is, will the systemic CSR and Net Zero change, and development of social sustainability, work for all types of financial firm? It seems likely from the case data and experience of change (Holland, 2010) that three factors will drive the chances of success. These include: the history of firms, their dominant social/economic context, plus the degree of achievement of CSR and Net Zero change aims in the four metaphor areas in firms. Financial firms differ in these respects.

Triodos bank started with a socially responsible and sustainable purpose to their banking function. NatWest had a financial “dominant logic” (Engelmann and Kump, 2020) from the 1980s onwards, experienced major problems in the GFC and contributed to major harms. Both banks seek to systematically incorporate CSR and Net Zero change ideas throughout the firm in the four metaphor areas in the BTFF. Both banks make money by managing financial risk and providing financial services. At times pressures in the world of finance may dominate their thinking and logic.

The BTFF can be used to test for such success in systemic CSR and Net Zero change, and development of social sustainability, and how it differs between firms such as Triodos and NatWest. The positive or negative role of quantifiable factors in history, dominant context, and in each metaphor area—on both CSR and Net Zero “success,” is a way to test for “CSRwash” (Pope and Wæraas, 2016) and “Greenwash” (Mattis, 2008), in firms such as Triodos and NatWest. Positive impact of quantifiable factors in all metaphor areas indicates systemic change in the whole firm when seeking to avoid harms and indicate holistic attempts to develop social sustainability (Schönborn et al., 2019).

The above indicates that the BTFF is a part of the means to answer the question, “What is going on here?” and focusses attention on critical change factors (Kay and King, 2020). This holistic narrative and metaphor approach is a means for individuals and teams to “stand back” and comprehend the bigger picture and strategic issues when responding to uncertainty (Kay and King, 2020). The conceptual framework, four-part metaphors and narrative, aid comprehension of the whole financial firm system, connections, and interactions, and outcomes. Each metaphor provides insights into each key area and focusses attention on critical change factors. As noted above this has potential “to make a difference” in, researching, learning, thinking, and believing about desirable responses to CSR and Net Zero change problems and harms, by financial firms and wider systems (Shiller, 2019). This offers many opportunities for stakeholders to respond to change.