Istanbul, December 24, 2025
Press Release
Environmental Protection Spending Surges by 108.3%
The environmental technologies sector, which offers solutions to raw material and energy shortages, has demonstrated strong growth momentum, according to the released data. Environmental protection spending in Türkiye rose by 108.3% year-on-year in 2024, reaching 441 billion Turkish lira.
The 2024 Environmental Protection Expenditure Statistics released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) reveal that environmental technologies are becoming one of the fastest-growing sectors in Türkiye, with increasing strategic importance.
Financial and non-financial corporations accounted for the largest share of environmental protection expenditures at 60.9%, followed by the public sector and non-profit organizations with 31.2%, while households made up the remaining 7.9%.
Investments in Environmental Technologies Have More Than Doubled
Environmental protection investment expenditures reached 82 billion Turkish lira in 2024, increasing by 114.2% compared to the previous year. Eighty percent of these investments were made by the private sector, while the remaining 20% were carried out by the public sector. This significant increase further strengthened the position of environmental technologies within the broader framework of economic growth.
Commenting on the data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), Namık Sarıgöl (Organizer of the IFAT Eurasia and Exhibitions Manager at EKO Fuarcılık) highlighted that environmental technologies have emerged as a key area of economic and strategic transformation.
Sarıgöl commented: “Environmental technologies play a critical role across all sub-sectors, especially for countries like Türkiye that rely heavily on imports to meet their energy and raw material needs. The growing level of investments in areas such as solid waste management, water and wastewater management, recycling, and waste-to-energy technologies clearly highlights this importance.”
Sarıgöl pointed out that 58.8% of environmental protection expenditures were devoted to waste management and 16.5% to wastewater management, while biodiversity protection accounted for 9.4% and the protection and quality improvement of soil, groundwater, and surface water resources represented 7.4%. He emphasized that these developments are strengthening Türkiye’s international visibility in environmental technologies and making the country’s environmental policies, technical capacity, and sectoral expertise more prominent on a global scale.
Highlighting the role of IFAT Eurasia, which since 2015 has brought together 61,026 professional visitors—including 6,673 international participants—with 1,700 exhibiting companies, 490 of them international, and has enabled 1,300 international brands to showcase their solutions through their representatives, Sarıgöl emphasized the exhibition’s contribution to the transfer of existing technologies and industry know-how.
He added:
“It is clear that the holistic and effective use of waste management and its related processes will strengthen our economy through the contributions it provides in terms of employment, reducing the foreign currency deficit, and ensuring savings in raw materials and energy.”
IFAT Eurasia 2025, held biennially and organized alternately with IFAT Munich, welcomed 240 exhibitors from 14 countries and nearly 10,000 qualified visitors from 74 countries in Istanbul.
The next edition of IFAT, the world’s leading trade fair for environmental technologies, will be held in Munich from May 4–7, 2026.
IFAT Eurasia is preparing to further strengthen its role as the regional meeting hub for the green transition in 2027.