Chief sustainability officers and reported ESG performance: evidence from ASEAN export firms

This study examines whether the formal presence of a Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) is associated with reported environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and whether firm-level managerial ability strengthens this relationship. Using panel data from export-oriented firms across ASEAN countries over the 2020–2024 period, the study measures CSO structural presence through a binary indicator, managerial ability using a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)-based approach and reported sustainability performance using Refinitiv ESG scores. The empirical analysis compares alternative panel specifications and employs a random-effects model with firm-clustered standard errors, controlling for firm characteristics as well as industry, country and year effects. There is no significant evidence that CSO structural presence is associated with aggregate reported ESG performance. Managerial ability and its interaction with CSO presence are also statistically insignificant. Separate analyses of the Environmental, Social and Governance pillars yield the same substantive conclusion. Rather than indicating that sustainability leadership is unimportant, these findings suggest that formal CSO presence alone does not systematically explain variation in reported ESG performance. The study distinguishes formal governance structure from substantive role authority and organizational implementation capability. It further shows that inferences regarding the CSO–ESG relationship are sensitive to panel structure and contextual heterogeneity.