Ecological Innovations as a Tool for Russia's Sustainable Development

The article discusses current global trends of sustainable development. The research shows that environmental innovation is one of the main tools for such development. Unlike many foreign countries, Russia has come to an understanding of the need for an accelerated development of eco-innovations relatively recently. Without reliance on these innovations, it is impossible to improve the country's competitiveness and solve the problems of economic and social development. In this regard, in recent years, Russia has developed and approved many strategic planning documents (concepts, strategies and programs), offering various measures to stimulate innovative activity of environmental users. On the basis of these acts, through the application of both general scientific (dialectical, deduction and induction) and private scientific (formal legal, legal interpretation and legal forecasting) methods, the article identifies the current state and prospects for eco-innovation development in the Russian Federation. As the study has shown, the main reason for the ineffectiveness of the adopted strategic planning documents lies in their "declarative" nature, namely, in the absence of an effective mechanism for their implementation. The article substantiates the need to abandon such an approach, and proposes additional measures to stimulate innovative activity of environmental users, such as: development of a modern mechanism for the formation of a state order for the development of environment-oriented production and products (services); short- and medium-term state support for domestic producers; development of a national integrated information and communication infrastructure for a single information space of innovation activities in priority areas, etc. The author of the article concludes that the concept of sustainable development requires a deep rethinking in Russia. This concept has not been fully embodied in Russia's strategic planning documents: the documents weakly link the problems of ecology and economic development. At the same time, the economic, environmental and social components form the basis of this concept. In other words, Russia's transition to sustainable development implies an interconnectedness and consistency of the taken economic and environmental measures. Only if this approach is consistently implemented, will our country be able to switch to an environmentally oriented path of innovative development in the near future.

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