The authors identify the theoretical and methodological foundations of the Dutch approach to sustainable development based on the analysis of the Dutch research centers for sustainable development and the publications of Dutch scientists. Theories of complex social systems, the coevolutionary paradigm, social change theories, and management theories, the development of which began in the 1960s, form the basis of this approach. The article discusses such features of the Dutch approach as recognition of the non-linearity of development and the need for adaptive and reflexive management of transition; recognition of heterarchy, panarchy during the transition, the impossibility of transition to sustainable development under severe authoritarian management and rigid hierarchy, as well as the need for coordination of social interactions at the functional, hierarchical, geographical levels; the coevolutionary influence of the state, private, and public groups and institutions on the transition to sustainable development and the need for governmental control of the context and conditions for mutual decisions and actions.