Environmental challenges often present businesses with unexpected situations, and in order to address them, innovation in the direction of sustainability must become an unavoidable activity. This entails the transformation and development of the existing business models, assuming a great business risk. The occurrence of the risk and its extent can only be estimated, which is why it is important to have management models that are able to handle the challenges posed by new, constantly arising risk factors. We analyzed the largest companies based on the number of employees with headquarters or sites in Hungary with regard to the management methods used by them to manage environmental risks. The methods used were the analysis of variance and cluster analysis. Based on the results of the research it is clear that the companies surveyed are already very concerned with environmental opportunities and risks, and they expect that the role of innovations applied to manage them to play a more prominent role in their future target system. However, the level of this is significantly different and does not depend on the financial performance, and at the same time companies can be divided into distinct groups according to the level of environmental risk management.

The Hungarian and the European Union's population is growing older, which is a widespread phenomenon that is caused by three major drivers of population ageing are declining fertility, falls in mortality, and net migration. In Hungary the reduction of fertility has been dramatic since 1949, the total fertility rate -that is, the number of children born per woman -has dropped by half, from 2,54 children per woman in 1949 to 1,24 in 2011. As people of reproductive age have fewer children, the proportion of children and young persons decreases, and results in a corresponding increase of the older age share of the population. Mortality has also continued to decline, especially at older ages. The increasing survival at advanced ages caused the increase of the proportion of the older population. The age composition of the population is transitioning to an older structure reflected by the comparison of age pyramids between 1960 and 2011. In 1960 the pyramid had a relatively triangular shape, and till 2011 the base of the age pyramid narrowed, the shape had transitioned to one that bulged at the working ages, denoting a population where ageing was already under way. The median age, a simplest and most widely used indicator of population aging, raised markedly in the past fifty years, indicating that half of the Hungarian population in 2011 is above age 40. The median age of Hungarian population is under de EU-27 average with 1.2 years. Hungarians live longer than ever before (the life expectancy at birth has increased by 11,65 years for mans and by 14,83 years for woman since 1949), and an increasing part of these longer lives is spent in good health due to improved health and living conditions and major medical advances and investments in the health system. At the same time the life expectancy of older people (age 65 and more) has increased rapidly. In the recent years demographers started to take into account the fact that older people today are, in general, more active and healthier than in previous generations, and adjusted the traditional indicators available for measuring population aging for increases in life expectancy. New measures were described by introducing the concept of prospective age. Old age was defined based on the old-age threshold, beginning at ages where remaining life expectancy is 15 or fewer years. The study of proportion of Hungary's population who are 65 and older and the proportion at ages with remaining life expectancies of 15 or fewer years leads us to very different conclusions. The conventional measure, begins with 8,9 percent 1960 and rises slowly to 16,7 percent in 2011. In contrast, the life expectancy adjusted measure shows that the population was actually getting younger (in 2011 the indicator's level was 0,4 percentage points lower than half century ago). A common indicator used to capture the social impact of population aging is the old-age dependency ratio (the older population related to the population of working age). According to this indicator, the demographic pressure is lowes...

Dr Péter Bertalan's monograph, A 'Bittersweet' Story. The Privatization of the Hungarian Sugar Industry in the Light of Globalization and Geopolitics reveals the economic history of an era with scientific fastidiousness, but nevertheless in a readable and understandable style, by depicting an authentic picture of the privatization of the Hungarian sugar industry after the transition to democracy. Although his inquiry focuses on a single industry and, in particular, the Kaposvár sugar factory, he is not analysing a unique phenomenon. He places the bittersweet story of the sugar factory in a broader context, and points out the deeprooted conflicts and complex processes which accompanied the change of regime.

In the spirit of sustainability business organisations have also put the circular approach to the forefront, and are trying to conduct their activities accordingly. They are developing technological improvements, innovative products and services to reduce their environmental footprint. The importance of protecting the environment and the principles of the circular economy have become key competitiveness factors. This study presents the commitment to the circular economy approach at the level of economic organizations. The survey included the 5,000 largest enterprises based on the number of employees established in Hungary in the form of an electronic questionnaire, from which the results from 202 responding enterprises were evaluated. Our research questions focus on what clusters companies can be classified into according to the environmental orientation in accordance with the framework of a circular economy, and whether there is a correlation between the companies' belonging to each cluster and their territorial location. The main methods used to analyze the results were Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, Cronbach's alpha, cluster analysis and cross-tabulation analysis. The results show that enterprises can be divided into three clusters based on the environmental focus, and the difference between the capital and the countryside is also strongly felt. Based on the results, we can state that the nationwide analyzes show that the paradigm shift has really started in the business practice, measurably in favor of rural enterprises. Businesses have recognized that their territorial competitiveness position will be strengthened if they adopt an environmentally sound management approach.