Sustainable development is a guiding principle of modern economic development. It is stipulated by the necessity to reconcile two opposing tendencies – economic progress and environment protection in such a way that will be beneficial not only for current, but future generations as well. Countries incorporate goals of sustainable development in their national policies and legislation as they clearly realize the danger of neglecting environmental problems, which is demonstrated by the authors on the example of disasters and crisis situations worldwide. The authors are convinced that sustainable development of regional economy should be based on a certain institutional framework. They analyze the whole complex of elements and connections between them which institutional framework is comprised of, and come to conclusion that their correlation and complementarity will contribute to harmonious development of the economy of a region with no discrimination against the environment, which exactly corresponds with the goals of sustainable development.