The study explores the moderating role of audit quality in the relationship between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors and corporate financial performance (CFP) in Western European countries. The research sample includes 620 firms headquartered in Western Europe, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, and Switzerland from 2010 to 2019. Panel data estimations are used to examine the direct and moderating effects. The results show that ESG has a significantly negative effect on a firm's financial performance as measured by the return on assets (ROA), supporting the trade-off hypothesis in which investing in ESG activities increases the cost of business. Additionally, we find that ESG's adverse influence on CFP is more evident at enterprises that are certified by Big Four accounting firms. However, ESG has a significantly positive effect on revenue, suggesting that customers are more attracted to firms that invest in ESG. The analysis of the subcomponents of ESG supports the main results. The results are robust to alternative model specifications and alternative measures of CFP and audit quality and are free of endogeneity issues. The findings contribute to the existing knowledge on ESG by elucidating the effect of external auditor quality on the ESG-CFP relationship. We also examine overall ESG scores as well as individual ESG characteristics (environmental, social, and governance).
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