Due to the negative impact of production activities on ecosystems, after many years of discussions, the international Agenda for the twenty-FIRST century was adopted in 1992, which officially recognized the need to change the concept of development - the transition to a model of sustainable development. In the two-level concept of sustainable development implemented in Russia (national and regional levels) there is no grassroots level-industrial enterprises, which are the basis of economic systems. This circumstance, as well as the use at different levels of different indicators to assess the achievement of sustainable development goals, does not allow for a systematic assessment of the transition to sustainable development of the national economy. The subject of this article is industrial enterprises. In the course of the study, the existing methods of assessing the sustainable development of an industrial enterprise are analyzed and the author’s method of assessing sustainable development that meets the specified requirements is developed. Significant factors - industrial policy and development cycles of the national economy, which have a key impact on sustainable development at the enterprise level-have been identified. The main provisions and conclusions of the article may be of interest to the authorities in the development of the national strategy for sustainable development, as well as for enterprises in the process of forming strategic programs for sustainable development, taking into account the environmental and social factors.