Trap Behind Triumph: Attribution and Formation Pathway Exploration of Corporate ESG’s Dilemmas

As a new performance evaluation system, ESG has garnered significant goodwill and tax benefits for a set of benchmark enterprises through its forward-looking corporate values and overall enhancement of public trust. However, as more companies pay attention and invest more in ESG, the pursuit of these ratings also entails increasing costs. Whether the impressive upward trend in ESG ratings genuinely enriches and enhances a company’s reputation, or if the ratings driven by ESG costs are unsustainable over the long term, remains uncertain. In the pursuit of sustainable development, several enterprises may find themselves in a predicament where ESG ratings are on the rise while corporate performance is declining. This paper selects listed companies in China’s petrochemical industry, which exhibit the distinctive characteristics of ESG and corporate performance divergence, as its research sample. It aims to identify the quantitative features of this performance–ESG divergence dilemma and empirically uncover its causes and development pathways. The findings of this research will guide enterprises back to the path of ESG alignment, providing a theoretical foundation for ensuring that companies adhere to a high-quality ESG development path. Furthermore, it offers insights into addressing the gaps in the rating system behind the phenomenon of inflated ESG scores and presents policy-oriented perspectives to help enterprises avoid the pitfalls mentioned above.