This paper uses the data of China's A-share listed companies from 2019 to 2022 to explore the impact of enterprise ESG performance on corporate resilience and its mechanism. It finds that there is a significant positive relation between ESG performance and corporate resilience, which is manifested in the stronger resistibility and the higher recoverability during the crisis. After refining the ESG performance dimension, it was found that compared to environmental performance, social responsibility and corporate governance have a more significant impact on enhancing corporate resilience. Mechanism analysis shows that ESG performance mainly enhances the crisis response ability of enterprises through four paths: increasing the market competitive advantage of products, reducing financing costs, improving corporate reputation and risk resistance. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the enhancement effect of ESG performance on corporate resilience is more significant in sample enterprises with managerial myopia, poor financial condition, and poor internal control. This suggests that ESG can help alleviate the “survival” problems caused by short-sighted managers, poor financial condition and internal control, and is an important driving force for enterprises to turn “opportunity” in adversity.