In the context of global market volatility and the pursuit of sustainable development, improving the financial resilience of manufacturing firms lays a critical foundation for high-quality development of the real economy. To explore the key channels through which ESG practices sustain financial stability amid external shocks, this study selects listed manufacturing enterprises in the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share markets from 2015 to 2024 as the research sample based on the CSMAR database. It employs the entropy weight method to measure corporate financial resilience, uses a two-way fixed-effects model for benchmark regression, and conducts mechanism tests through mediation and moderation analyses to explore the underlying channels between ESG performance and financial resilience in manufacturing enterprises. The results indicate that improved ESG performance significantly enhances corporate financial resilience, and these findings remain robust after robustness tests and endogeneity treatments. ESG performance primarily enhances the financial resilience of manufacturing enterprises by alleviating financing constraints, increasing R&D investment intensity, and strengthening corporate environmental governance. Heterogeneity tests show that the positive impact of ESG performance on financial resilience is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises, manufacturing enterprises located in Central China, and those in the recession phase. Based on the above conclusions, this paper puts forward targeted suggestions for the government, manufacturing firms, and investors to promote ESG practices and boost financial resilience.
Xing et al. (2026) studied this question.