Sustainable development in the aspect of ecological and economic scientific concepts

Abstract

Old industrial regions, which include the Chelyabinsk region, are traditionally typical subjects of environmental problems accumulated over the period of their extensive development. Multiple problems of physical, mental, reproductive health and quality of life of the population of such regions originate from the negative consequences of “dirty” industrial production accumulated over several generations. Therefore, it is natural that the results of sociological research in the region show the primary (70.7% of respondents with the possibility of choosing several answers at the same time) importance of solving environmental problems. The regulatory acts adopted to date in protection of the environment and the modern industrial technologies being introduced, coupled with the reduction of “dirty” industries, certainly allow reducing environmental tension in the region, however, the inertia of the collective psychology of consumer and permissive attitude to the environment accumulated over the “Soviet” decades has not yet been overcome in different societies. Accordingly, the solution to these problems increasingly depends on the formation of environmentally friendly behavior of the region’s population both in the matter of personal culture of behavior and in the matter of forming an “atmosphere” of such behavior in places of stay and communication. Accordingly, methodological problems of studying environmentally friendly behavior naturally arise both from unresolved theoretical and methodological problems, and because of the debatable nature of methodological approaches and techniques and concepts for interpreting the expected and obtained research results. Problems of practical use of the results of research on environmentally friendly behavior are due to both the complexity of the subject of this behavior (a person) and the difficulties of determining the content, direction and effectiveness of measures to form environmentally friendly behavior in different categories of the population.