According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), taxes with environmental relevance reached €5.9 billion (+8.7% compared to 2023), mainly driven by the ISP (Special Consumption Tax), while public spending on environmental protection decreased to €1,610 million (€1,774 million in 2023).

“Portugal presented a transforming environmental landscape in 2024, with significant improvements, but with persistent challenges, in a context of economic growth,” noted the INE, when releasing the environmental indicators for last year.

Among the relevant aspects for this context, INE highlighted the growth of the resident population – (an increase of 1% compared to 2023), which was “the second largest increase of the 21st century” – reaching 10,749,635 people, and economic development, with domestic demand growing by 2.9%.

“Significant aspects were observed in the energy transition, with electricity from renewable sources reaching a maximum of 86.2%, contributing to the reduction of national energy dependence to 64.3%,” reads the document released today.

The year in question was the third hottest of the last decade, while air quality was classified mainly as good (46.0% of the days).

Despite the number of rural fires being “the lowest of the last decade,” the burned area increased to the fourth largest of this period, according to the same source.

“Regarding resource use, domestic consumption of materials decreased by 5%, but the production of sectoral waste increased by 4.9% and the collection of urban waste by 3.4% compared to 2023,” according to data from the INE (National Institute of Statistics), which also indicate that the rate of preparation for reuse and recycling of urban waste reached 37%, but “still far from the 55% target for 2025.”

Industrial companies with environmental management and protection activities increased (+1.2 percentage points), but reduced environmental investment by 11%, with operating costs increasing by the same order of magnitude.

“Entities producing environmental goods and services generated €13.9 billion in revenue (€13.8 billion in 2023), of which €8.1 billion resulted from environmental activities within the scope of resource management.”

The fleet of vehicles in circulation grew by 4.6%, but 100% electric passenger cars increased by 49.4%, representing 2.7% of the total.

209,700 new passenger vehicles were sold, 5.1% more than in 2023.