Compared with the impact of listed corporates' environment, social responsibility, and corporate governance (ESG) on financing and market value, considerably less attention is paid to the role of ESG performance in improving environmental quality in China. However, exploring the environmental motivation of listed corporates' ESG engagement is vital for shareholder protection and corporate strategic development under state–business interactions. Thus, we study the relationship between state–business interactions and air pollution from the perspective of ESG using the dataset of Chinese listed corporates. The results demonstrate that the state–business collusion interactions increase air pollution by hindering the fulfillment of ESG. Meanwhile, this impact of heavy pollution corporates is higher than that of industrial corporates. However, the deleterious relationship might be largely improved when state–business interactions are "clean." Finally, we observe that ESG mediates the relationship between state–business interactions and pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]