Environment, public utilities

Hungary’s GDP increased by 0.5% amid global challenges in 2024. The performance of goods-producing industries lessened, while that of service-providing ones rose, which shows the duality of economic trends. Household consumption picked up, which was considerably encouraged by the purchasing power of earnings growing again with the inflationary wave calming down. Besides, the data series reveal that the level of employment reached another peak.

The Hungarian birch mouse became the Mammal of the Year in Hungary in 2025, and it is a specially protected global rarity with an intangible value of HUF 1,000,000 per individual. 186 of the 1,193 protected animal species belonged to the most endangered specially protected category in Hungary in 2024. Our infographic prepared for Hungarian Nature Day provides information on the Mammal of the Year as well as protected natural values in Hungary.

The publication presents and quantifies climate change-related processes in Hungary based on a set of indicators that are consistent with domestic policies and international standards. Increasingly frequent extreme weather events, such as heat waves and supercells, affect energy use and damage wildlife, agricultural crops and infrastructure. Climate change threatens people's health and has a negative impact on the economic cycle.

A green economy, as a model of organising and developing the economy, aims to reduce environmental risks and to compensate for the scarcity of available natural resources, as one of the priorities aims to increase energy efficiency. According to energy performance certificates issued in 2022 for new and used residential real estate, buildings with the highest energy efficiency were in Győr-Moson-Sopron and Pest Counties as well as Budapest, while the least energy efficient ones in Nógrád, Békés and Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Counties.

Datasets from the Dissemination Database regarding settlements have been updated with 2021 data, as such settlement related data for 2021 are available since 13 December, concerning, among others, public water and sewerage.

In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro, and gave the impetus to the integration of the concept of sustainable development into national and global policies. In Hungary, the National Sustainable Development Council (NFFT, established in 2007) developed the Hungarian National Sustainable Development Framework Strategy, which was adopted by the Parliament in 2013. The framework strategy aims to provide a nationwide, long-term guide for individual and community action. Compared to the strategy of the European Union or the UN SDGs, the Hungarian framework strategy interprets the concept of sustainability much more narrowly. In this interpretation, sustainable development policy is primarily a long-term resource management activity in which it distinguishes four resources: human, social, natural and economic resources.