The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the economic development of civilization in the 21st century is accompanied by numerous environmental and social challenges that scientists around the world are constantly working on. Technogenic and natural disasters that occur on the planet are associated with climate change, which in turn, a significant number of researchers and world leaders believe is a consequence of economic activity. The subject of research of the article is the concept of sustainable development, which actually includes these three aspects: economic, social and environmental.. The goal is the evolution of the concepts of nature use in the context of global environmental challenges and their practical use in countries around the world. The objective is to research the concept of sustainable ecologically balanced development of the national economy. General scientific methods are used, such as system analysis. The following results were obtained: the transition to sustainable development has led to the emergence of numerous concepts of its implementation in the area of addressing sustainable use of natural resources. The theoretical substantiation of such in terms of the laws of thermodynamics is simply impossible, as well as the invention of "perpetual motion". However, the use of inexhaustible energy sources (such as thermonuclear, solar, geothermal, tidal, etc.) and renewable biological resources (transgenic, cloning, etc.) allows us to talk about the possibility of theoretical justification for sustainable ecologically balanced development. At the same time, relative, since this nature use is possible only within use) of the limits of balance in profit and expenditure (reproduction natural resources). Conclusions: implementation of sustainable development is possible only in the form of sustainable eco-balanced development based on rapidly renewable biological resources and the use of practically inexhaustible energy sources, as well as the use of high technologies. Such development can provide a solution to economic, social and environmental problems with the preservation of the natural complex.