Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the presentation for Huhtamäki's results for the full year 2022. My name is Kristian Tammela, the VP of Investor Relations. As usual, we will kick off with a presentation by our President and CEO, Charles Héaulmé, followed by our CFO, Thomas Geust.
At the end, we will wrap up with a Q&A session and leave enough time for that. Before we start, I will remind you that we have an upcoming Capital Markets Day here in Espoo on March 28, and more details on that will be made available a bit later. With that, I'll hand over to Charles.
Thank you, Kristian. Good morning to all of you, thank you for joining this session about our results for the fourth quarter 2022 and the full year of 2022. I will, as usual, start with on our second page on an executive summary, giving you a few highlights of the year and particularly of the quarter four, where we have delivered a strong performance in a continued volatile environment. Volatility continues. What we mean with this is that we have seen variations in input cost development and, at the same time, a softening of the demand in many categories and geographies.
In this context, our financial performance has been strong and continuously strong in line with the rest of the year, with a comparable sales growth in the fourth quarter of 9% and 15% for the full year 2022. Our adjusted EBIT is growing 14% in the fourth quarter and 25% overall in 2022. Third point, our board of directors is proposing a dividend of 1 EUR per share for the year 2022. That represents a growth of 6%. I would continue about our strategy execution, where in line with the rest of the year, we are continuing to invest for growth. We're continuing to invest for growth in two streams, as we explained in the previous quarters.
One is about increasing capacity, in line with the projected demand in our core categories, and at the same time, we are developing our technological capabilities in order to deliver more innovation. Our delivery of innovation, I'll come back to that as more precisely, has been illustrated with the highlight of the announcement of Nespresso paper-based compostable coffee capsules that was back in November. I'm coming back to this point specifically. Last point about the fourth quarter. In the end of November, on November the 30th, last year, the EU was announcing the proposal for the PPWR, the packaging, paper and packaging waste regulations. This is a project. As well, I would like to give you a few more highlights on understanding it.
In the following page, as I suggested, a couple of words on our investments in the next generation innovation. Again, this has been very much illustrated. This is the big highlight of 2022, with the development of paper-based coffee capsules.
This is an exclusive partnership with Nespresso. It is based on our proprietary high-precision technology, derived from the molded fiber technology that we own since decades, but where we have developed over the last couple of years, a very high-precision new technology that enables us to enter into completely new categories, and this product is the best proof of it. A launch is planned in the market as of the spring of this year.
There has been as well in 2022, other what we call next-generation innovations, which have to do all with putting in the market more sustainable solutions and across geographies. One was the so-called ICON. It's a recyclable paper ice cream packaging that's in particularly in the U.S. market.
Then under the brand name blueloop, which stands for all our sustainable innovations, we have the new paper lid that has been as well developed and announced during the year, the push-tab blister lid, which is dedicated to the pharmaceutical industry. Lastly, the OmniLock Ultra Paper flexible packaging solution, which is a new innovative solution, a high barrier based on paper, which brings a buyer up to the quality and specification that we would have with alu foil.
That's as well breakthrough innovation for our future. Now, as I said before, a couple of words on the evolution of the EU regulations when it comes to sustainability, and particularly with the PPWR, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, which has been proposed at the end of November of 2022. What I would like to highlight is a few aspects, maybe not going into many details unless you want to, you know, that we discuss details, then we can take it during the Q&A session. First point is about understanding the implications, what is going to require into our businesses, into our core businesses. Three main aspects. First of all, the requirement for recyclability at scale, which I would say is very much in line with our strategy.
I would like to remind that in our strategy and commitment to 2030, we say that we want to design all our products, 100% of our products for recyclability, reusability or compostability by 2030. That, that is very much in line. Second point has to do in this PPWR, has to do with the amount of recyclable content, or you should say recyclable plastic content for plastic packaging, there will be a requirements on how much needs to be recyclable content into the packaging. Then the third one is about the reusable systems that need to be implemented in the HoReCa channel.
There's been some interpretation about how much could be the impact on our core business. We would like to offer some light on it and trying to be relatively precise so that as to gauge the direct impact on particularly on the reuse system in the HoReCa business.
Our estimation is that by 2030, if the legislation is going through, and I come back late now, in a few seconds to the regulation, the legislative process, if it comes through by 2030, that would mean a potential impact in the worst-case scenario of 2% of our current net sales, and by 2040 of 5%. That's really on the long run. Some products are outside of scope.
Now, I would like to step back a little bit and third point, offer maybe a little bit more of a holistic view on our business from a long-term perspective. I'm talking about the food service business that is the one directly in focus of this regulation. To say that we see on the long run a net positive impact. The reason for being relatively positive on the long term is that, number one, this QSR or HoReCa business is a market that is growing and relatively fast-growing market in Europe, in the world, but in Europe in specific. Second, there is a strong plastic substitution that is continuing to go on in Europe, and that is favoring our portfolio, which is two-third paper-based, fiber and paper-based.
That's the second point which is positive. Third point, there are aspects in this legislation which as well play in favor of our portfolio, and I will take one example. The legislation still not being finalized as it is a proposal, was proposing end of November that non-compostable coffee capsules would be banned within two years after implementation of the law, which is planned in 2024.
That together or at the time of our innovation in fiber-based, paper-based co-compostable coffee capsules, is actually a very positive impact to us. Net-net, when we add the negatives and the positives, we believe it will be a net positive long-term development for our food service business. A few words without going too much into detail into, you know, the regulation process. There has been this project on the 30th of November 2022.
In practice, it takes usually 18 - 24 month in the EU for such a project to come as a regulation. The deadline for in the mandate of the current EU Commission is by end of April 2024 in order to have certainty about this regulation to come through through the legislative, current legislative mandate. Last point which is important to note is that there is a requirement, a quorum requirement in the EU in order to pass the legislation, which is a 65% support for the legislation in order to pass. This 65% is not as number of countries, but as population. Countries population representing 65% of the entire EU.
I believe those couple of words were important to clarify a few aspects on regulations, but of course open to more questions if you have in the next session of Q&A. Now jumping to slide six on our business performance for the fourth quarter and starting with the sales. The sales have been increasing 10% in the fourth quarter, and that's a comparable net sales growth of 9%. You may recall that the 10% compares to previous quarters reported net sales growth of 31% year-to-date end of September. Major difference being that we don't have acquisitive impact anymore since we integrated the Elif company as of end of September 2021.
That's a major impact. Second major impact is the divestment of our Russian operations, end of September 2022. That's why we have in Q4 a -3% from divestment, a +5% from continued positive currency impact, particularly USD. When we look at the same sales performance, but on the full year basis, we are increasing our sales by 25% in reported terms 2022.
This is comparable net sales growth of 15%, 5% from the Elif acquisition, -1% from the divestment of the Russian operations, and 6% from the currency impact, reaching EUR 4.479 billion, close to EUR 4.5 billion. Looking on the next slide now, how this sales growth is broken down by our different business segments.
We see that we have a growth that remains strong in most segments, to the exception in Q4 of flexible packaging. The food service packaging is growing 15% in comparable terms in Q4, 18% in the full year 2022. The demand has slightly softened during the quarter four, in line with other categories as well. North America growing comparable terms 14% full year, but 10% in Q4, where we have seen increasing variations in the demand across the different categories in North America. In particular, the demand in retail was good. However, we've seen consumer goods, particularly on the ice cream consumption, suffering during the fourth quarter.
The demand for flexible packaging soften in our key markets and particularly in emerging markets, explaining why Q4 is at a much lower growth pace than the rest of the year, which is full year 14%. Fiber packaging being consistent over all the quarters of the year with 17% growth in Q4, 15% comparable growth full year.
The demand for fiber-based egg packaging and food-on-the-go products remains stable in most markets. Moving on to now the P&L items, key items with an improved adjusted EBIT despite the inflation, underlying that we have managed the pricing extremely well again in quarter four. Overall, I would say during the full year 2022, we have improved the adjusted EBIT through sales growth and as well operational efficiency.
We see that the EPS is actually growing faster than the EBIT. The EPS in Q4 is growing 20%, and it's the same 20% on a full year basis, reaching EUR 2.49 compared to EUR 2.07 in 2021. And that's despite or including the EUR 2.49's, including the fact that we have divested Russia end of September. And then final maybe important comment is the growth of our CapEx by 19% in Q4, 23% in the full year, in line with our comments given during the previous quarters, investing for, as I said before, two streams, growth on our core business capacity and then innovation in new sustainable product solutions.
Moving on to page 10 on our sustainability dashboard, I may not go through all the different KPIs, but highlighting that we have an overall good performance, which is in line with the trajectory that we have defined for ourselves with our 2030 commitments. Highlighting maybe three important and significant improvements. Number one, renewable electricity, which is almost at 25% in the end of 2022. I would like to compare it to two things. First, to where we were in 2021, 18%. That's almost 7 points improvement. That compares to a zero base in 2019 when we set our targets for 2030.
That's a really very good performance which will continue because that doesn't account for the VPPA contracts that we have signed in both in U.S. and in Europe to buy renewable electricity going forward. Those VPPA starting in 2023. Very strong highlight on this. Second is the industrial waste recycled is as well jumping 3 points from last year, from 72%-75%. We are on our trajectory to 90%, which is our commitment for 2030. Maybe last point, which is of high importance, is the waste to landfill. We are committed to zero by 2030, and we have increased that waste.
We have reduced our waste to landfill by 5 points from 2021 to 2022 to a level of 12%, 12.4% at the end of 2022. That's for the sustainability highlights. By business segments, a couple of words, one-page summary for each business segment, starting with food service, where we see in the sales that the demand for food service packaging has softened during the last quarter of the year.
The sales are increasing in our key markets, driven particularly by pricing. However, China remains the main negative deviation in 2022, both in quarter four and in the full year. The raw material prices continued to increase in the fourth quarter.
Our adjusted EBIT improved, driven by pricing and an improved mix, particularly with the innovation product. Our investments in the food service segment are mostly directed to what I mentioned at the beginning, new innovative solutions, particularly for smooth molded fiber applications, dedicated to FMCG channel.
That's for the food service segment, where our margin for the full year is at 9.5%, 9.1% in Q4. North America now, where the growth has softened as well in the last quarter of the year, ending with a comparable net sales growth of 14% for the full year, with a margin for the full year close to 12%. We sustained the 11.7% for the full year with a strong quarter four.
The net sales growth has been in varying in the different categories, as I mentioned before. There has been a continued broad-based cost inflation and therefore, our sales growth is as well driven by pricing management. The volumes, particularly in Q4, have been declining, and that's particularly due to stock management, so it's not so much market-driven.
Even though in some categories like consumer goods for ice cream, it is market-driven. A lot has been about across the value chain cash flow management and therefore reduction of stocks, which has had an impact on the demand of Q4, likely to be recovered soon. That was a very important point for December. Our adjusted EBIT improved.
We see a positive impact from the net sales growth through pricing, but as well the operational efficiency that has increased. At the same time, the sales mix was relatively unfavorable. That's for North America, where again, our margin remains strong at close to 12%. Flexible packaging, page 14, has seen very challenging market conditions then a one-off item that is impacting the Q4 profitability. The demand for the flexible packaging in our key markets has declined during the fourth quarter, particularly in Turkey, in Eastern Europe, and in UAE. On the other hand, we have seen in Southeast Asia a growing demand. The net sales increase has been driven by pricing, partly offset during the fourth quarter by the decrease in the volume.
Most importantly, the adjusted EBIT that decreased during the last quarter of the year. This profitability was weighed on by unfavorable currency impact in local operations. When I say local operations, I mean particularly Turkey and even more particularly Egypt, with the strong devaluation of the Egyptian pound during the fourth quarter. Additionally, we have had, as I said before, the unfavorable volume development. That has an impact, of course, on our capacity utilization and therefore profitability. There has been a one-off inventory adjustment, which had a negative impact that was in our Czech Republic unit, where we had to make a one-off inventory devaluation in Q4.
That doesn't have an impact as such on the full year because that was an overvaluation of that inventory in up to Q3 of the year. That's for flexible packaging. Lastly, page 15, fiber packaging, where the overall demand, as I mentioned before, has remained stable in most markets, and where pricing has been sustaining as well our sales growth. We have an adjusted EBIT that increased in line with the sales during the full year. We see comparable net sales growth 15%, adjusted EBIT growth of 10% and ending at 11% for the full year on an EBIT margin level. That's for the fiber. Now some more details with Thomas on the financials.
Thank you, Charles. I will move into the detailed profit and loss. A lot of these items as usual addressed already by Charles, so I will try to focus on some items which might not have been mentioned so far. First of all, you recall that we had a strong year-to-date growth of 31% roughly on net sales and adjusted EBIT by the quarter three. Now it's 25% on both the items, but you can also see here that we have slight acceleration in the adjusted EBIT growth, following really the operational performances and then of course, the activities we have had around pricing, slightly negatively offset by the Russian divestment. That impacting the earnings slightly negatively.
On the top line, I would highlight that in Q4 we do not any more have from a comparable point of view, the Elif acquisition. We had Elif in already in Q4, and then the Russia business is out, so that's also a negative impact in Q4 on the comparison year-on-year. If we move onto the net financials, you can see that the net financials are heavily up. That's mainly driven, of course, by the higher net debt levels we have. The full year numbers also keep in some offsetting items related to Russia, and then some losses again also related to the Egyptian pound devaluation.
On a run rate basis, we are not on the level where we see the quarter, it will be slightly lower. The tax rate is now on 19% ETR versus 23% previous year. The ETR rate was further improved, if we say it that way, from a legislation change in Turkey allowing for the decrease of deferred tax liabilities in Q4. That one basically taking down the tax rate to 19%. As we already reported in Q3, we also have the positive outcome of the divestment of Russia which is considered a tax-free gain.
You also see that our adjusted numbers are slightly below the reported numbers on full year level, which means that we have more benefits in our ISE than negatives in the items affecting comparability. On the currency, the currency continues to trend positively, if you look on the column to the right, you can see that already some of the currencies start to trend negatively, especially they start to trend negatively if you compare to the average rate year to date. The tailwind from currency is with current exchange rates expected to not be as favorable in 2023. Take U.S. dollar as an example.
We have an average rate of 105, closing rate of 106, currently I think the Euro-USD is trending at 107. From that perspective, some of the tailwind from currency currently at least is gone. If you look on the EBIT to net sales here, I stick behind my earlier statements that what we see in the currency net sales EBIT is mainly translational impact. Net debt, here we are down roughly EUR 50 million compared to previous years' net debt levels from that perspective, the main contribution comes from the.
comes from the sale of Russia, which contributed strongly to our cash, not free cash flow, but to a reduction of net debt. In the last quarter, we also had a positive cash flow, which I will come back to later. The loan maturities are at 3.2 years currently. Fixed rates 63% roughly of the overall outstanding debt. There is a increase in the interest rates currently clearly versus previous year. On the cash flow, we have an acceleration, as I said, in Q4 in cash flow.
If you take quarter by quarter, we had a n- EUR 46 million in the first quarter, EUR 20 million in the second quarter, and then a positive six in the third quarter. EUR 71 million now continuing the positive trajectory, and the main contribution comes from the operating working capital, so release mainly of inventory. The CapExes are on a high level, EUR 380 million high, reflecting our strategic intentions of organically building capabilities in sustainable packaging solutions. A expected high CapEx level and which is also expected to continue on a high level next year. On the asset side, the main movements are from the divestment of Russia currency impacts and then the CapExes and operating working capital.
Nothing as such dramatic on the balance sheet side. The operating working capital, here we have a strong improvement in Q4, although as you can see, the operating working capital on a full year basis significantly increased by EUR 144 million. If we take only Q3, we released, I think, roughly EUR 150 million of inventories in the quarter alone. Charles already highlighted that the dividend proposal by the board is EUR 1 per share. That's 6% up to previous year, with a adjusted DPS up 20%. The EUR 1 per share is equal to a payout ratio of 40, so on the lower bracket of our payout ratio corridor.
The share price at the year-end was EUR 32, so with the proposed dividend, the dividend yield would be 3.1%. With this one, automatically would continue as a year-on-year increasing dividend payer. It would be the 14th consecutive year, and I think with that it are the company in Finland, stock listed company in Finland with the longest consecutive payout, increased payout. Moving towards the long-term ambition and as Christian already highlighted, there will be a CMD where we will be discussing both our strategic intent but also obviously the ambitions.
If you look at our development towards the ambitions on the organic growth, we are clearly above here, of course, supported by the pricing side of in order to offset the inflation. Also on the margin side, we have a dilution from the pricing and the net debt EBITDA, you can see we are spot on in the middle of the ambition corridor with then also the dividend payout continuing to match the bracket of 40%-50% payout. With that one, we are handing over to questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Robin Santavirta from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three questions, please. First of all, I was wondering about Q4, whether you saw a customer inventory, destocking, and in what segments, what markets we have seen many similar companies to you being burning quite significantly in Q4 from customer inventory destocking. Can you just comment a bit and give some color on that? What should we expect? Is that continuing now in the start of 2023? Second question I have is related to 2023. Outlook in North America saw a very strong performance again in 2022, much better than I think was expected by investors and analysts.
Are there any reason why the performance should become weaker when it comes to margin and absolute level of earnings when we go into 2023? Or is it quite worse than the momentum you're bringing from 2022 will continue in this year? Final question I have is, if I look at the group, this is a bit of a holistic question, but I think a lot of people wonder, I mean, your EBIT is up 25% year-on-year, probably all-time high in a year where we have quite significant input cost inflation, which normally is negative, at least temporarily for a packaging converter like you. What is the reason that you have been able to perform so well in 2022?
Are there any sort of things that then would not be, sort of, there in 2023 that we should understand when input cost starts to go down? Those are three questions. Thanks.
Thank you, Robin. Good morning. I suggest, I start on the, you know, question by question, and then Thomas, you can complement, if you like. On your first question, Q4, whether we have seen a destocking from customers and where, what impact on 2023, yes, we have seen some destocking, so it's not been across the board. This has been, you know, If one statement can be made about customer, about market/customers is on Q4, is markets have been softening in terms of demand, so consumers have been softening. Consequence, customers have been reducing their order pattern.
In addition, there has been a destocking because the entire value chain in the different channels has been suffering low cash flows during the first part of the year, and this has been an important aspect in Q4. Where have we seen it particularly? I can say we've seen it particularly in the U.S., and specifically in December, which will have a likely an impact early 2023. Which month is January, February, but in the first quarter. We have seen it in other segments, but it has been particularly in the U.S. Thomas, anything you would like to add?
No, I think the story of managing stock is something we all, we included, are focusing a lot on, with the disrupted value chain or supply chain in the start of the year, many companies stocked up. I think it's more a category management now going on. People are very focused on which categories will be growing and which are assumed to be more flat.
Thank you. Robin, to your second question on North America, specifically strong performance. Yes, we're very happy with the performance in North America, and this is as well a reason why we have decided in. You have seen our CapEx is relatively high in 2022. Part of it is because we have decided to focus some investments, a significant part of investments on the core business in North America to scale that business because we see the U.S. market growing, particularly in the categories where we are very present, and whether it's tableware, retail tableware or food service as well, folding cartons. We are investing because we see that we are very confident that the profitability level is sustainable.
Going up from where we are will be a challenge. Of course, we want to improve permanently, continuously, but that will be a challenge. To your question, which was more should we worry about, and maybe your question is in line with the ambition that had been given, three years ago, about North America being between 9% and 10%, EBIT margin. That we have climbed to, 11%-12%, we want to sustain this at least. And we see 2023 as a tight year. It's going to be another very challenging year, particularly if volumes would be softening. Otherwise we are, confident, and we will come back, of course, Kristian and Thomas mentioned the CMD on the 28th of March.
We will come back, of course, on this and particularly on our ambition in North America. Thomas, anything you want to add on this one?
No, I think that's fine.
Thank you very much, guys.
Your last question, I did not answer your third question, Robin, on the EBIT, the EBIT improvement of 25% in 2022, where you said somewhat beyond expectations. You had two questions. Basically, how did we manage the inflation? As well, you know, if I understood your question, is there anything special in 2022 that we should be worrying that it's not there next year? The answer to that part is no. There is nothing exceptional that will not be present in the following periods. Two things.
There is something that is in 2022 that hopefully we will not see anymore. That's the huge disruption that we've seen in emerging markets, particularly Turkey, Egypt, that has been affecting, particularly our flexible packaging margin. When you consider, this margin that is much below what it should be and what we believe it will be, then actually, this is a positive aspect, looking forward to our company margin. To your question about the inflation, the inflation has been a two-year story. It didn't start in 2022. It started basically in January 2021 with the, at that time, the recycled fiber. The thing that we have done very well are two things.
Number one, being very early at, I will not say anticipating, but reacting to the first signs of inflation that was back in January 2021 as a company. Being very early, that has enabled us to be in full swing in the pricing management in 2022. The second aspect is to reinforce our pricing processes, resources in order not to get any deviation in our margin during this inflationary environment.
Thank you, guys. Thanks.
The next question comes from Jutta Rahikainen from SEB. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, all. A few more questions. Damien, Flexible parts. We covered it already, but now Q4 was many times mentioned soft, and you also discussed the reasons. How should we think about the coming few quarters in flexibles? I mean, it's probably going to continue weak in the first half of 2023. Is there some reason why it could or should all of a sudden bounce back to the good levels at the fast pace? That's the first one. Thanks.
Good morning, Jutta, and thanks for the question. Flexibles, yes, indeed, in Q4 is definitely, you know, disappointing as well for us. The 4%, or the 4.2% EBIT margin that we are reporting is not reflecting the business performance. The reason is two things. One is the one-off issue that is relatively significant during Q4, about this inventory devaluation we had to make on our Czech Republic operations. That is a one-off. We won't see it in the coming periods, of course. Second, there has been this devaluation, strong devaluation of the Egyptian pound in Q4, which as well has a strong impact. You know, there may be more devaluations in some emerging markets. We don't know.
We can't, you know, project what will be the development in Egypt and a few other countries. If you exclude those two items, our Q4 profitability in flexible would have been 7%. 7% is not our ambition. It's far below our 9%-10% EBIT margin ambition for flexibles, and we believe we will get there over next couple of years. We'll come back to that, by the way, in the CMD, obviously. Long story short, we believe that one variable is going to be, of course, extremely important in the first quarter and the coming quarter is the volume development in the market. Volume demand is going to be de-determining our profitability. Second, this weak level will not remain because there is this one.
Two one-offs, which shall not appear again in Q1, in Q1 2023.
Okay. Thank you. My next question would have been that if you want to quantify the inventory effect, I guess you probably did. This is at 7% excluding those two items then. Good. India, still sticking with flexibles. What's cooking there?
India has improved actually during the fourth quarter. I would not tell you that we are where we want to be, but you understood in the previous quarters that we had a cycle down linked to... which has started basically in March 2020 with this COVID crisis that has impacted tremendously this market. We have been in Q4 starting what I would call the ramp-up to this turnaround. We are pleased actually with our fourth quarter. We still need to improve to get to the, you know, ambition, EBIT margin that we have and the growth as well. The development is encouraging.
We have very good management in place now, since, you know, in different functions, the first part of the year and then since August, with our new GM. We are equipped. There is strong support from the group for our Indian operations. To give you one indication, the India EBIT year-over-year in the quarter four has been doubling, which is a sign versus 2021 that we are on the right path. We're not there yet, but it has been a relatively positive quarter.
Okay. Thank you. That's good to hear. Your volumes, twofold question. First of all, now I read it that you did not have any volume growth in Q4, but you've probably had a small volume decline. What's the percentage you would suggest we apply for that? The second part of the question is that what's your volume estimate for 2023, either on a divisional or geographic level or even a group level number? Just to get a feeling. I mean, do you expect volumes to decrease or be flat or perhaps even growth? Thank you.
Thank you, Jutta. On the volume, indeed the, a s I said, our reported sales growth, look much lower than in the previous quarters. Again, we have to, you know, account for all the non-comparable items and the acquisitions and divestments are there to explain the most part of it. In the comparable net sales growth, the Q4 is fully pricing. The volume was actually mid-single digit negative. Okay? When you read basically across the value chain of our different channels of customers, this is very much in line, meaning we do not have any analysis showing that we would be losing market share. That's one very important aspect.
Second, however, because of stock management, but as well because of the looming recession in many different geographies, volumes have been negative in the quarter four of 2022. If we put that back into the perspective of the full year, remember that we had a relatively positive first half of the year. Then quarter three in volume was kind of starting to slide down without being negative. Now it's negative in Q4. Overall, we're talking about flat volumes for 2023... 2022, sorry. Your question about 2023, I mean, this is a very complex one. If you want our expectations, what we are building upon, our capacity as well is we believe that we will see growth in 2023.
A relatively modest and it's not going to be a consistent evolution across the year. Meaning that we are considering that Q1, eventually Q2 could be difficult, but then the second half, more positive. More positive from two perspectives. One, we would believe that this looming recession would ease in the second part of the year. Second, we will have some of our capacity investments coming into play where we have excellent projection. If I take, for instance, investments in the U.S., with our egg packaging, additional factory that we are installing, we know that the legislation is very timely for us for this investment since with the ban of EPS of polystyrene packaging in one third of the states.
Just to say that in the second semester, it's not only the macroeconomy we are counting with, it's our capacity.
I would add a few things both to 2022 and maybe also for 2023, and that's a general statement on when looking at what reports are out there. It seems like the food-related businesses, including also QSR, are doing quite well in this recessionary environment. The discretionary spend, so, to some extent is lower, especially in the emerging markets. Nothing new with that one as such. There may be one element also to throw into the game would be the opening/closing of some markets. Q4 2022 all in all, we should consider China to have been a closed market as an example. From that perspective, that's maybe one of the markets where we will see some activity going up.
Yeah. Good additions. Yeah. Thanks.
Okay, that's helpful. I think, my last question will be for now, on the pricing side, I assume that you still see some cost inflation, although some items are down. Maybe if you talk us through that. On the pricing side links to that one, do you think you will start lowering prices during 2023? Are your clients asking for that already? How do those talks go? Thanks.
This question is complex because compared to 2022, where basically the year started with inflation across the board, across all input costs, 2023 is starting in a very diverse situation where I'll start with a lower item. Transportation distribution costs are going down to relatively low level in line with the demand that is going down, obviously. Raw materials, there are many variations. Some raw materials have already started to go down, are still at a high level, but have started to go down. All the resins and polymers, as well as recycled fiber, for instance. Some are still going up, paperboard, for instance. Energy prices are potentially starting to decline, but at a very high level.
All in all, we are still considering a net plus inflation in 2023. From that perspective, pricing in average shall not go down. The, you know, the work for the teams together with the customers is going to be sophisticated in considering these variations as opposed to a period where, you know, everything was going up significantly.
Okay, that's clear. I leave it to the next person. Thank you.
The next question comes from Kaija Leukkanen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. A lot of the perhaps more important questions were already asked and answered, still have a couple left. If I look at for Q4 the items affecting comparability, you have something there called environmental case, EUR 8.4 million, and then also settlement and legal fees of disputes, EUR 1.5 million. Can you help us understand what these are and what they relate to? Also that RD is now kind of done and dusted or is there more to come?
Yeah. Yeah, I will comment only on the environmental case as such, because the legal fees and other are more, I would say, stuff that you will seem across the company every now and then. Nothing, nothing dramatic around the legal fees as such. The environmental case is related to a old site, not anymore with us, where the negotiations and discussions with the authorities have advanced to a state where we feel confident in taking in a provision, and the provision is reflecting our view of potential upcoming costs.
Okay. Thank you. That's very clear. That's very clear. Then perhaps on the sustainability side, you showed the sustainability dashboard on page 10 of the presentation and I was just wondering about the renewable or recycled materials. It's been kind of sliding down now for several years. If I compare now the 2022 figure to 2019, it's down more than 2 percentage points. Is this kind of just related to some, you know, sales mix type of things or why is it kind of going down when it should be going up?
Yeah. Thanks, Kaija. This performance item that indeed goes the reverse direction to our commitment to 2030 is purely portfolio related. When I say portfolio, it has to do not with the fact that we grow faster in flexible packaging where most of the raw material is non-recycled or renewable. It's not the growth. It has to do with the acquisition of Elif in 2021, which of course, has been integrated only one quarter in 2021, three more quarters in 2022. When you If I understand that you looked at two years' gap, when you compare to 2020 baseline, obviously technically it's driving us down.
This is a ratio that unless other changes in the portfolio in 2023, you will see going up thanks to all our investments which are mainly in capacity for paper-based and fiber products. Namely, to give you illustration so that we speak concretely, the egg packaging in the U.S., folding carton in the U.S., the fiber smooth molded fiber investments in Europe, for instance, in the fiber leads or that replace plastic or coffee capsules as well. All this should be over time increasing or reverting to a positive trend.
Maybe to add.
Okay
N ow for the last quarter. The Russian divestment also plays into this.
Good. Very good point. Yes.
Yeah. Okay. Good. Thank you. Then perhaps you mentioned, you mentioned there in one of the questions that you have new capacity coming on during 2023 from investments. Is there any way to kind of quantify the impact in terms of sales, for example, from this additional capacity coming on during the year? That we would have a better sense of how much the capacity actually is that's coming on.
Yeah. Not guiding from the capacity point of view, you know that we have, you know the investments we have been communicating around, first statement. All the investments we do are in order to allow us to grow in accordance with our ambition. The type of investments we have in very rare cases bring on at 1 time a significant uptick so that you could all of a sudden calculate in a 10% increase sort of coming in from a single investment. It's incremental year on year. The investments we have coming on stream in 2023 are related to a lot of the things we have been discussing here already.
Smooth molded fiber, the FMCG related investments both with regards to coffee pods and to folded carton, and then the first volumes out of the Hammond factory in North America, but for sure not full scope. Obviously on top of that, we still also have markets where we will be getting some better asset utilization on already existing machinery. It's a very mixed picture in 2023 from that perspective.
Okay. Thank you. Then lastly, on CapEx for 2023, is there any sort of indications that you would like to give out on what level the CapEx could potentially be in 2023?
I would say, this year's level or above.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. That's all for me.
Thank you all for interest. We are now running out of time. If you still have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us. With that, we'd like to thank you for your interest and wish you a very good day.
Thank you.
Thank you.