Sustainable Regional Development in the Digital Environment: Analysis and Assessment

The digital environment has brought to the forefront the issues of sustainability and sustainable development, posing new risks, threats and opportunities and disrupting the socio-economic landscapes of countries, industries, and regions. The transition to the digital economy has determined the need to revise the existing theoretical concepts, analysis tools, and sustainable development management methods. The existing assessment methods insufficiently consider the digital environment and the role of digital technologies in solving sustainable regional development problems. Therefore, they cannot be used as a tool for transforming digital technologies into the digital asset of sustainable regional development. The aim of the study is 1) to analyze and assess the sustainable development of regional entities in the digital environment depending on the level of solving sustainable development problems and the available digital potential; 2) to analyze the dependence of sustainable development results on the use of digital technologies in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The hypothesis of the study is that the use of digital potential has a significant impact on the indicators of sustainable regional development, while the depth and direction of this impact are determined both by the nature and number of digital solutions, and their integration into the existing socio-economic systems of the regions. The methodological base and research methods include content analysis, logical deduction and induction, system analysis, taxonomic rating methods, clustering and virtual structuring. The statistical base is formed by data from the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation and statistical collections of the Higher School of Economics National Research University. The authors consider the essential features of the sustainability of socio-economic systems and the role of the digital environment, analyze the theory of the digital economy and the impact of digital technologies on sustainable development, systematize and clarify the categorical apparatus in sustainable regional development and create its theoretical model in the digital environment, as well as develop and test a methodological approach to assessing and analyzing sustainable regional development in the digital environment. The paper confirmed the dependence of sustainable development results on the use of the potential of digital technologies for most regions, with the most pronounced effect registered in leading and outsider regions. The obtained results can be used by federal and regional executive authorities to coordinate socio-economic development and digital transformation strategies.