Policymakers in emerging economies are increasingly concerned that global ESG-scoring firms based in developed countries are “unfairly punishing” their companies by assigning them lower ESG scores. Using Refinitiv—the most comprehensive global ESG database—this study shows that firms in developing countries have ESG scores that are about 16% lower (relative to the standard deviation) than those of firms in developed countries. Further analysis indicates that this “score gap” stems from features of the ESG scoring process itself rather than from any systematic “rating bias”. Specifically, the “score gap” is driven by the implicit global industry-based benchmarking assumptions embedded in Refinitiv’s ESG rating methodology, which fails to adequately account for domestic priorities in emerging markets and thus systematically disadvantages their firms. When this issue is addressed using our proposed Modified ESG scores—which benchmark firms jointly by country and industry, thereby isolating within-country, within-industry variation—the score differences become statistically insignificant.