Modernization of the economy of an industrial region on the basis of using resource-saving technology

Currently, modernization is one of the promising ways to solve problems related to adapting the economy to the introduction of anti-Russian sanctions, as well as creating conditions for preserving people in Russia, including by ensuring a high quality of life. Special attention has been paid to such a component of the quality of life as a favorable environmental situation, which is quite difficult to create in industrial regions. The aim of the work is to propose tools for the modernization of the region’s economy based on resource-saving technology. As an industrial region, the article considers the territory located within the boundaries of the emerging Cherepovets agglomeration (city of Cherepovets, Cherepovetsky and Sheksninsky municipal districts, Kaduysky Municipal District) of the Vologda Region. The author’s methodology is presented, taking into account the duality of internal connections between the structural elements of the regional socio-ecological and economic system. The approbation of the methodology showed that in three of the four municipalities of the region under consideration, the natural deficit exceeds the economic effect, and in the remaining one there is a tendency toward increasing the natural deficit, accompanying an increase in the economic effect, which served as a justification for the expediency of modernizing the economy through the use of resource-saving technology. Taking into account the specialization of the region in the production of chemical and metallurgical industries, projects have been proposed providing for the use of accumulated and generated volumes of phosphogypsum and ash slag in the production of asphalt concrete mixtures and building materials. The calculation of sales on the scale of the Vologda Region indicates that the involvement of phosphogypsum in the production of asphalt concrete mixtures by reducing cost will increase the length of repaired roads in the Vologda Region by an additional 70.7 km (10% of the planned level of road repairs for 2024). The use of fly ash in the production of building materials will help ensure the utilization of the entire volume of ash and slag material generated in the region, reduce their cost, thereby increasing the scale of construction.