This study examines the impact of CEO succession on strategic Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) behavior—specifically the divergence between ESG disclosures and substantive corporate practices. Utilizing a panel dataset of Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2022, the research demonstrates that firms led by successor CEOs are significantly more inclined to engage in strategic ESG actions. Furthermore, this study investigates how individual executive political and green-related experience, moderate this relationship. The results indicate that the positive association between succession and strategic ESG behavior is more pronounced among CEOs lacking political connections or green backgrounds. This suggests that access to external resources and established professional reputations may mitigate the incentives for purely symbolic ESG engagement. Additionally, the effect is amplified in firms with lower institutional ownership, where external monitoring mechanisms are less robust. These findings are resilient to various robustness checks, including firm fixed-effects models, instrumental variable estimation, and entropy balancing. This research contributes to the literature on ESG and leadership transitions by identifying CEO succession as a critical determinant of strategic ESG behavior and highlighting the contingent roles of executive backgrounds and corporate governance environments.