use empty function to check if the return value is empty or not:
<?php if ( function_exists('get_custom_field_value') ):
$custom_field_value = get_custom_field_value('Essential info 5', true);
if(!empty($custom_field_value)):
?>
<li><span>
<?php echo $custom_field_value; ?>
</span></li>
<?php
endif;
endif; ?>
also check if the function ‘get_custom_field_value’ is returning with echo statement, you may need to change that to just return the result and not to echo it out.
Hope it solves your problem.