A Study on the Impact of ESG Performance on Corporate Risk—Evidence from Chinese A-Share Listed Firms

在全球可持续发展理念深入推进的背景下，环境、社会与治理(ESG)表现已成为企业运营的重要考量因素。本文以2009年至2023年沪深A股上市企业为研究对象，探讨了ESG表现对企业风险的抑制作用及其作用机制。研究结果发现，良好的ESG表现能够显著降低企业风险，这一结论在经过一系列内生性检验和稳健性测试后依然稳健。机制检验表明，ESG表现通过缓解企业的融资约束和代理问题，从而有效降低企业风险。本研究为理解ESG表现对企业风险的影响提供了新的经验证据，并为推动企业可持续发展和风险管理提供了实践指导。Against the backdrop of the deepening promotion of the global concept of sustainable development, environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance has become an important consideration for corporate operations. This paper takes Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2023 as the research object, and explores the inhibitory effect of ESG performance on corporate risk and its mechanism of action. The results show that good ESG performance can significantly reduce corporate risk, and this conclusion remains robust after a series of endogeneity tests and robustness tests. Mechanism tests show that ESG performance effectively reduces corporate risk by alleviating corporate financing constraints and agency problems. This study provides new empirical evidence for understanding the impact of ESG performance on corporate risk, and provides practical guidance for promoting corporate sustainable development and risk management.