A mechanism for selecting a sustainable development path for a sectoral industrial complex based on an integral sustainability indicator

This article proposes a mechanism for selecting a sustainable development path for a sectoral industrial complex based on an integrated sustainability indicator. It is shown that most existing methods assess the achieved level of sustainability as a state at a specific point in time and do not provide a tool for comparing possible development options on a unified basis, which is the scientific problem of the study. The integrated indicator is constructed from four blocks – economic, social, environmental, and technological – through the standardization of individual indicators and their subsequent aggregation. The paper proposes a six-stage mechanism, the key of which is a selection rule that sequentially checks the balance of the blocks, positive dynamics, and the achieved level of the indicator. The scientific novelty of the paper lies in the fact that the trajectory is selected not based on a single criterion (usually economic), but on the combined level, dynamics, and inter-block balance of the integral indicator, preventing the enhancement of one aspect of sustainability at the expense of others.