隨著環境、社會、公司治理意識抬頭，永續發展的概念亦越發重視，近年來，與企業社會責任議題相關的新聞層出不窮，屢屢帶來重大損失或造成公司名譽受損，究竟涉及ESG爭議事件對企業而言是蜜糖還是毒藥？據此，本文旨在探討公司若參與具有爭議性的ESG事件，是否會提高其與股東或是債權人融資的成本，本研究以2019年至2021年美國市場作為研究樣本，共計17,067筆觀察值，並以多元線性迴歸模型（Multiple regression analysis）分析ESG爭議事件與企業融資成本之間的關聯性。接著，本文探究權益資金成本與負債資金成本受爭議性事件影響的力度是否一致，並進一步分析環境、社會、公司治理三種不同面向的爭議事件，對於企業融資成本的影響力。
研究結果表明，在融資時，企業享有較低的權益或負債資金成本，因公司並未涉及具爭議性的ESG議題；實證結果亦顯示權益資金成本與負債資金成本受爭議事件影響程度不一致，相對負債資金成本，權益資金成本具備較高的敏感度。此外，在ESG三種面向中，又以屬於社會議題相關的爭議事件影響力道最大。綜合上述，ESG爭議事件將會促使企業的融資成本提高，為公司的融資情形帶來負面影響效果，故企業應盡可能避免參與具爭議性的ESG活動，朝永續發展之目標邁進。

With the rise of environmental, social and corporate governance awareness, the concept of corporate sustainable development has become more and more important. In recent years, news related to corporate social responsibility issues has emerged one after another, which has repeatedly brought heavy losses or damaged the company's reputation. Is it honey or poison for businesses that engage in the ESG disputes? Accordingly, this paper aims to explore whether the companies participating in the controversial ESG events will increase the cost of capital with the shareholders or creditors. This study uses the enterprises in the US market from 2019 to 2021 as a research sample, with a total of 17,067 observations. By using multiple regression models to analyze the correlation between the ESG controversies and corporate financing costs. In addition, this paper explores whether the cost of equity capital and the cost of debt capital are affected by controversial ESG events in the same way, and further analyzes the influence of three different aspects of environmental, social and corporate governmental controversies on the financing costs of the enterprises.
The research results show that when financing, the company enjoys a lower cost of equity or debt capital, because it does not involve controversial ESG issues. The empirical results also show that the cost of equity capital and the cost of debt capital are not affected by controversial events to the same extent. Compared with the cost of debt capital, the cost of equity capital has higher sensitivity. In addition, among the three aspects of ESG, the controversies related to social issues have the greatest influence. To sum up, ESG disputes will increase the enterprises’ costs of equity and debt capital and bring about negative effects on the company's financing situation. Therefore, the firms should avoid engaging in the controversial ESG activities as much as possible and move towards the goal of sustainable development.

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