Malugina E. G.

The relevance of the topic. The state and prospects of the Central Chernozem regions in the field of ecological, socio-economic development determine the need for analysis and assessment of their level of development in the context of all-Russian trends. Goal. Assessment of the parameters of the ecological, socio-economic development of the regions of the Central Chernozem region, determining the prospects for their development in this area of public relations. Methodology. Monographic method; cluster, logical and comparative analysis. Since the regions of Russia are numerous and differ significantly in the level of ecological, socio-economic development as a whole and in its individual components, in order to understand the prospects for the development of this sphere, their grouping was made, which made it possible to form virtual clusters using cluster analysis that are sufficiently homogeneous in terms of the totality of the estimated parameters. The assessment was made according to seven parameters: «the average annual number of employees by type of economic activity for the year», «distribution of the number of organizations and enterprises by type of economic activity», «environmental protection costs», «turnover of organizations by type of economic activity», «the share of captured and neutralized air pollutants», «the volume of turnover and consistently used water.» Virtual clusters have been formed as of the period 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021. Results and conclusions. The results obtained indicate that for four years there has been a positive trend in four of the five regions of the Central Chernozem region. At the same time, the Voronezh and Kursk regions were included for three and four years, respectively, in cluster «B», characterized by the highest indicators characterizing: the number of people employed in the field of water supply; sanitation, waste collection and disposal, pollution elimination activities; the number of organizations in this field of activity; the share of the volume of shipped industrial products for the collection, processing and disposal of waste, processing of secondary raw materials in its total volume. In general, the Central Chernozem Economic Region can be considered as one of the reference points of industrial modernization with the prospect of increasing the environmental friendliness of production, the use of «green tools», the introduction of new nature-saving industries. Scope of application. The practice of industrial modernization in the field of ecological, socio-economic development of regions.