A Study of the Impact of ESG Performance on Enterprise Innovation

In the context of the new round of global technological revolution and industrial change, manufacturing enterprises are facing problems such as key technology chokepoints and insufficient internal innovation, and ESG, as a core indicator for measuring the sustainable development capability of enterprises, can provide directional guidance for the innovative development of manufacturing enterprises. This research empirically analyses the impact and mechanism of ESG performance on corporate innovation based on the data of A-share listed manufacturing enterprises from 2019-2023. It is found that ESG performance has a positive promotion effect on corporate innovation. Heterogeneity analyses show that ESG performance of non-state-owned firms is a stronger positive contributor to corporate innovation relative to state-owned firms, and that ESG performance of non-high-tech firms is a stronger positive contributor to corporate innovation relative to high-tech firms. Therefore, we should pay attention to enterprise innovation activities, accelerate the construction of a standardised ESG rating system, and form an innovative system that enterprises pay attention to, society pays attention to, and the government supports.