<p>Industrial enterprises are foundational to modern economies, contributing substantially to economic growth, employment, and technological advancement. However, their activities are frequently associated with substantial environmental degradation, resource consumption, and social challenges, placing them at the centre of global sustainability efforts. Although numerous sustainability indicators have been proposed to assess enterprise performance, existing approaches are often fragmented, reporting-oriented, and imbalanced across environmental, economic, and social dimensions. This study develops and validates a holistic and balanced sustainability indicator framework for industrial enterprises following the three-pillar approach. A systematic review of peer-reviewed literature and international standards was conducted to identify sustainability indicators applied in industrial contexts, revealing substantial heterogeneity, overlap, and underrepresentation of social and economic aspects. To address these shortcomings, a structured framework for indicator classification, refinement, and validation was applied. An open-ended questionnaire was administered to a heterogeneous panel of sustainability experts from industry, academia, research institutes, governmental agencies, and consultancy to assess the relevance, applicability, and clarity of the identified indicators. Expert feedback was used to refine and finalize a balanced set of indicators that captures key sustainability challenges faced by industrial enterprises. Even though the proposed approach was not designed as a circular economy assessment tool, the framework explicitly incorporates core circular economy principles through indicators related to resource and energy efficiency, material recovery and recycling, waste reduction, and lifecycle-oriented considerations. The resulting framework supports performance-oriented sustainability assessment, enabling enterprises to identify inefficiencies, benchmark progress, and inform evidence-based sustainability strategies. Furthermore, the proposed framework is methodologically adaptable and can be extended to support the identification and validation of sustainability indicators across different sectors.</p>