At present, the green transformation of enterprises is facing many difficulties such as difficult technological breakthroughs, large capital demand, and high operational risks. This paper provides new ideas for promoting the green transformation of enterprises from the perspective of the supply chain greening effect of corporate ESG performance.

Taking the supply chain data of China’s A-share listed enterprises from 2010 to 2021 as the research sample, this paper examines the impact of the ESG performance of customer enterprises on the green transformation of supplier enterprises. The results show that the ESG performance of customer enterprises can promote the green transformation of supplier enterprises through the synergy effect and the capital effect to realize the supply chain greening effect. Further analysis reveals that corporate ESG performance greatly enhances the overall competitiveness of supply chains after realizing the supply chain greening effect, and effectively improves the resilience and security of supply chains.

This paper has the following important implications: First, for core enterprises in the supply chain, especially large customer enterprises with market power, they should not only strengthen their own awareness of green sustainable development, but also optimize supply chain management, and give full play to the leading, driving, and supervising role of supplier enterprises. Second, for supplier enterprises, they should make full use of the resources and advantages provided by customer enterprises to accelerate the realization of their own green transformation. Third, for governments, they should break the “green island” in the green transformation process of enterprises, realize the green development mode of “transforming a batch and driving a piece of it”, and pay attention to the supply chain greening effect of the ESG performance of customer enterprises, so as to make it an important focus of the current green transformation policy of enterprises.