ESG Governance as a Value Driver: Evidence Across Industries and Investor Perception

While economic growth and globalization have heightened ESG concerns, lack of clarity remains regarding whether ESG governance drives economic value across different industries. This study clarifies this ambiguity, by showing ESG oriented companies do drive economic value, but the values differ depending on the industries the companies belong to.  The “one-size-fits-all" ESG metrics fail to account for industry specific materiality because the governance risks in tech industries differ from those energy or services sector. This gap has a significant impact on how we understand the ESG principles and ESG scores. This study addresses this gap by examining ESG performance across the agriculture, manufacturing, education, energy and services sectors using financial and secondary data. This research evaluates the impact of each ESG pillar on different industry sectors and aggregates ESG scores on key performance metrics by including ROA, ROE, and Tobin's Q. The findings are expected to demonstrate that materiality-weighted factors have strong, sector-specific economic consequences. This research aims to improve valuation accuracy and strengthen investor confidence in sustainable markets.