An Empirical Study on ESG Evaluation of Chinese Energy Enterprises Based on High-Quality Development Goals—A Case Study of Listed Company Data

The high-quality development of energy is the basis for and premise of achieving the high-quality development of the economy, and energy enterprises, as the main body of the microeconomy, are the “carrier” of its success. The national strategy of dual carbon and energy security requires energy enterprises to achieve sustainable development. In the context of global sustainable development, ESG is an evaluation technology that comprehensively measures the environmental sustainability, social value and governance ability of enterprises and improves the sustainable development ability of enterprises by focusing on the non-financial performance of enterprises and the co-creation and sharing of stakeholder value. As an important energy producer and consumer, China has not yet established an ESG evaluation system for energy enterprises that is in line with international standards and national conditions. Therefore, this paper constructs an ESG evaluation model framework of energy enterprises and studies the high-quality development performance evaluation of energy enterprises under the sustainable development strategy from the two dimensions of theoretical enrichment and empirical analysis. The model framework includes a factor structure model, performance evaluation index system, index weight model and performance evaluation model. First, integrating the new development concept and the safe development concept, the ESG connotation of China’s energy enterprises was defined by localization. Second, using the Delphi method, an ESG evaluation system with 3 sub-target layers, 14 criteria layers and 40 index layers was constructed. Third, the weights of each index in the ESG evaluation system were established by using an AHP–entropy combination weighting method. Fourth, based on the statistical data of 2021, 79 key pollutant energy enterprises listed in China were selected. The TOPSIS method was used to establish an evaluation model to empirically evaluate the comprehensive level of ESG and the performance of the E, S and G dimensions of the sample companies, and the evaluation results were analyzed. The results show that the weight ratio of E, S and G is relatively balanced; and the weight of social responsibility ranks first at the target level, environmental response ranks first at the criterion level and energy supply guarantee ranks first at the index level. The overall ESG performance of the sample companies is average, and the G performance is not ideal. The ESG synthesis and the performance of all dimensions are significantly polarized, and the development of different dimensions of E, S and G is mostly unbalanced and uncoordinated. The results demonstrate the following: (1) Using the Delphi method, the ESG structural dimension model of energy enterprises is constructed by selecting evaluation indicators reflecting the concepts of innovation, coordination, green, open, sharing and safety, which enriches the connotation and extension theory of ESG. (2) The AHP–entropy combination weighting method model can scientifically obtain the weights of indicators at each level in the ESG evaluation system. (3) The proposed ESG evaluation index system can effectively measure the high-quality development level of energy enterprises. This research can provide regulatory authorities with sustainable development policy suggestions for strengthening the top-level design of ESG; building an ESG-healthy ecosystem; and integrating ESG investment with energy security, carbon-neutral goals and corporate strategies to promote the high-quality development of enterprises.