ESG Information as a Decision-Support Tool for Assessing the Market-Based Financial Resilience of Production-Oriented Companies

The growing importance of ESG considerations has increased interest in the role of sustainability-related information in supporting managerial and stakeholder decision-making and the assessment of corporate resilience. This study examines whether publicly available ESG rankings can support the identification of companies exhibiting greater market-based financial resilience, with particular attention to industrial and production-oriented companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The study is based on an empirical simulation analysis of companies listed on the Main Market of the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) between 2023 and 2025, classified according to the public ‘Responsible Management’ ESG ranking. The companies were divided into groups with the highest and lowest ranking positions (division variants: 50% and 40%), and the analysis was conducted at both the individual-company level and the level of five-company buy-and-hold portfolios with equal initial weights, with the latter serving as an aggregation-based robustness assessment. Market-based financial resilience was assessed using a multidimensional approach, employing a set of indicators including rate of return, volatility, Sharpe and Sortino ratios, and measures of extreme risk (VaR, CVaR and maximum drawdown). A permutation test with the Holm correction was used to verify the statistical significance of differences between groups. A separate analysis of production-oriented companies was conducted to examine whether observed pattern was also present in a production-related context. The results indicate that groups of highly ranked ESG companies generally exhibited more favourable risk-adjusted performance than lower-ranked companies, with the differentiation becoming more pronounced in the later periods, although the strength of this relationship varied across periods and risk measures. The findings suggest that publicly available ESG rankings may provide decision-relevant information on companies’ market-based financial resilience and may therefore support managerial, stakeholder and investment-related decision-making rather than serving solely as an investment-screening criterion. Such resilience is particularly relevant as a condition supporting business continuity and long-term development. The study extends the interpretation of ESG-related market information beyond investment performance alone and highlights its potential usefulness for managers, investors, and other stakeholders assessing corporate resilience and sustainable long-term development.