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• Individual investors involved in ESG investments generally achieve lower profits compared to other investors. • Sophisticated ESG investors, with greater financial knowledge, diversified investments, contrarian strategies, and resistance to familiar biases, can mitigate these lower returns. • The research enriches ESG investment literature with new insights into how individual ESG investors' decisions impact equity investment return (EIR), offering a unique micro-level analysis. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investments are widely discussed in the stock market. Further, the debate on ESG investment profitability has garnered significant scholarly attention. This study examines the relationship between ESG investments and equity investment return (EIR) and whether this relationship is affected by investors' sophistication. The results suggest that while ESG investors generally gain relatively lower profits than others, sophisticated investors, characterized by greater financial knowledge, diversified investments, contrarian investment strategies, and not being influenced by familiar biases, can mitigate these lower returns. These findings enhance our understanding of ESG investments and offer valuable insights to guide investors in making sophisticated ESG investment decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]