Sustainable development today covers not only certain aspects of the environmental and economic aspects of society. The very structure of the economy, in particular the production sphere, as well as the whole society, is changing radically. Moreover, the structure is not only a systemological, but also the category of sustainable development. It acts as the basis of any material phenomenon or process, that is, it serves as a relatively stable basis on which more mobile elements function. Therefore, the closest concept that allows revealing the essence of sustainable development, the problem of cognition of environmental and economic transformations, transformations and their regulation, is the structure. It is by using the disclosure of the structure as a fundamental element of the system of sustainable development that can reveal the factors of deep changes in the economy, under the influence of which the transformation of industry towards modern environmental guidelines, and with it employment, investment, innovation, systems of their state regulation.