Is Budapest a sustainable destination?

Various cities worldwide apply sustainable strategies to manage the escalating urbanisation and facilitate our living in overpopulated areas of socio-economically benefiting cities. But you might be wondering if Budapest is one of them. Budapest is one of the biggest cities in Central Eastern Europe with more than 1,7 million people, and the number is expected only to increase in the upcoming years. It is also the economic engine of the country.

So how does the capital of Hungary stay sustainable since it ranked 57th out of a hundred cities in the Sustainable Cities Index of Arcadis? Gergely Karácsony, the municipal leader, made climate action one of the three main pillars of his vision for Budapest and vowed to transform the Hungarian capital into a green city.

Among the top priorities is reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality; however, they’ve been already met by several challenges, which must be overcome to reshape Budapest into a sustainable city.

Despite the city’s well-developed public transport system or car domination, the number of bike rides has increased significantly in recent decades. The increase of so-called e-mobility would notably reduce carbon emissions and improve the quality of life for residents of Budapest by moderating air pollution.

Shared micro-mobility services such as bikes and e-scooters could also sustainably make up for the transit challenges. Since 2014, the MOL group, Hungary’s most prominent integrated oil and gas company, has also been a part of this section. It will continue to have an essential role in the city’s sustainable future as more than 100 thousand people are now registered to ride the “MOL bikes”.

Keeping an eye on waste consumption may be crucial in helping the city improve and become more sustainable. Luckily enough, the Municipal Public Services (FKF) developed waste consumption by turning it into energy. Eight hundred thousand tonnes of waste is the total number that FKF collects in Budapest per one year.

More than 50% of the solid waste generated in the capital goes to the only waste-to-energy power plant in Hungary, which the FKF also owns. The energy generated from the incarnation of nearly 380 thousand tonnes of waste is quite enough to cover the annual electricity demand of 50 thousand households and the yearly district heating of 16,000 apartments.