ESG performance shows the comprehensive governance level of enterprises, and therefore studying the impact of ESG performance on corporate competitiveness is of great significance for enhancing governance capabilities of enterprises and consolidating their market position. Based on the data of A-share listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchange from 2009 to 2022 as a sample, and with the help of the panel model, the following conclusions were drawn: Firstly, the ESG performance of enterprises represents their comprehensive development ability and reflects their all-round development, so their ESG performance will enhance their corporate competitiveness; after a series of robustness and endogeneity tests, the ESG performance still plays a significant role in promoting corporate competitiveness. Secondly, the ESG performance promotes corporate competitiveness by enhancing the total factor productivity of enterprises. Thirdly, the heterogeneity analysis showed that the ESG performance has a more significant impact on the corporate competitiveness in central areas, state-owned corporate and non-high-tech corporate. Further analyses showed that the impact of corporate profits on corporate competitiveness is significantly lower than that of ESG performance. Based on this, the government should do a good job in the top-level design of ESG evaluation system, and guide the ESG evaluation task well; Enterprises should regard ESG investment as an “investment in value”, and implement ESG evaluation tasks well. This study can provide inspiration for theoretical research and practical work on strengthening corporate ESG construction and enhancing corporate competitiveness.