⑴ Background——There are few literatures on total factor productivity of forestry enterprises and its influencing factors from micro level. The performance of ESG includes the performance of enterprises in three dimensions: environment, social responsibility and corporate governance. It is an important indicator for the international community to measure whether an economic entity can achieve sustainable development. The discussion on the influencing mechanism of ESG performance on total factor productivity of forestry enterprises is of great significance for promoting high-quality economic development. ⑵ Methods——Based on the data of A-share listed forestry enterprises from 2011 to 2020,specific enterprises include forest cultivation industry, wood processing industry, furniture manufacturing industry, paper and paper products industry and other enterprises. Multiple linear regression model was used to analyze the impact of ESG performance on total factor productivity of forestry enterprises. And then, step-test procedure and bootstrap method were used to test the mediating role of innovation capability and internal control between ESG performance and total factor productivity in forestry enterprises. All the research data of forestry enterprises comes from the Wind, CSMAR,Straightflush and DIB database. ⑶ Results——The mean value of ESG performance and total factor productivity of forestry enterprises are 6. 302 and 8. 894 respectively. The total factor productivity of forestry enterprises with good, average and poor ESG performance are 9. 075,8. 808 and 8. 320 respectively. The results of One-way ANOVA show significant differences between groups at the 1% level. It shows that forestry enterprises with good ESG performance have higher total factor productivity. The regression coefficient of ESG performance on total factor productivity of forestry enterprises is 0. 1470(P=0. 01),indicating that ESG performance has a significant positive impact on total factor productivity of forestry enterprises. ESG performance includes three dimensions: environment, social responsibility and corporate governance: Forestry enterprises’ undertaking environmental responsibility improves the utilization efficiency of forest resources and promotes the coordinated development of ecology and economy. Undertaking social responsibility helps to accumulate more social capital and form a harmonious internal and external environment. A perfect governance mechanism reduces agency costs and improves employees’ value creation ability, thus promoting the improvement of their total factor productivity. The result of the mediating effect model shows that forestry enterprises with good ESG performance can improve resource allocation efficiency by improving enterprise innovation capability and improve the internal control mechanism and reduce ESG risk so as to promote the improvement of total factor productivity. ⑷ Conclusions and Discussions——Good ESG performance of forestry enterprises is a key factor to improve total factor productivity. First, the government should improve the rules and regulations related to ESG,guide forestry enterprises to undertake ESG responsibilities through policy incentives and punishment mechanisms, encourage third-party organizations to participate in the credit rating of forestry enterprises ESG,promote them to improve the quality of ESG information disclosure. Second, forestry enterprises should attach importance to the idea of ESG,integrate ESG performance into their corporate strategies, and fulfill ESG responsibilities actively. Third, forestry enterprises should make full use of the mediating role of innovation capability and internal control, pay attention to the investment of innovation resources and the construction of internal control systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]