Assessment of digitalization impact on environmental sustainability of old industrial regions of Southern federal district

It is generally accepted that digitalization has a positive effect on “green development”, accelerating the introduction of energy and resource-saving technologies. For the economy of old industrial regions of Southern Russia, whose industrial companies cause significant damage to the environment, increasing environmental sustainability is especially important. The purpose of this article is to find the answer to the question of whether the ongoing processes of digital transformations in Volgograd and Rostov regions affect their environmental sustainability. In this article, the environmental sustainability of the region in the context of digitalization means regional development, based on the construction of such relationships between the social and economic system of the region and the natural environment that will not lead to its deterioration. When studying the environmental sustainability of the region, the following indicators are analyzed: emissions of pollutants from stationary sources into the air; discharge of polluted wastewater into surface water bodies. To analyze digital transformations in the region, the indicators characterizing the share of entities in the region using various types of digital technologies are taken. The study covers the period from 2010 to 2021. As a result of the study, a lack of connection between the indicators of digitalization and indicators of environmental sustainability in the regions under consideration was revealed. Based on the strategic and policy documents analysis for the Volgograd and Rostov regions’ digital development, it was concluded that the main reasons for the communication lack are insufficient attention of regional authorities to the possibilities of digital technologies’ use to solve the problems of environmental sustainability growth, which leads to the degradation of the territorial natural capital.