Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dear shareholders, dear directors of the company, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome you at this review of the company and the strategy, and that I will give you in the next half an hour, giving you an overview of our strategy and as well our business performance. I will start this by telling you a bit about our portfolio and the business overall, that we are offering packaging solutions for food and everyday necessities, and we do that globally based on three complementary technologies. So let me give you a little bit of more granularity on this. When I'm saying we are offering solutions, packaging solutions to customers globally, our customers are basically in four channels: the food service, the FMCG, the retail, as well as the healthcare industries.
As you would expect from a global company, we are working in each of these customer channels, channels to market. We are working with global brands that represents, particularly these, these channels. For instance, in food service, we work with McDonald's as a key customer, with Starbucks, with Burger King, and many other brands, but not only global brands. We work as well with many very relevant local, national companies. Very relevant from an innovation and from a growth point of view. In FMCG, as you would expect, we work with Unilever, with Nestlé, with Mars, Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, and many other, more local or national, accounts. In retail, we work particularly with Walmart, Costco, for instance, in the U.S.
But if we're speaking about more local, domestic national representative brands, for instance, closer to us now in Finland, we work with Kesko as an example. So that's for the customer channels that our portfolio is reaching. And our portfolio is basically based on packaging solution for food and for everyday necessities. And there is one thing I would like to highlight, which I think is fair to remember about Huhtamäki: our products are basically reaching billions of people, billions of consumers every day around the world, and this is something we are proud of. We have a huge responsibility in front of us, and we're going to speak about, like the chairman of the board said, sustainability, because the world, for its future, is depending a lot on sustainability.
As I said, we are having a portfolio developed over three complementary technologies, and I'll come back to why we use the word, extremely important, complementary. And those three technologies are the paperboard conversion, the fiber forming, and then the flexible packaging. And in these three technologies, we have a leadership position, either globally or in some specific categories, and we will explain a bit more in detail later in our strategy, what it means in terms of opportunities going forward. I said that we are a global company, and we are a truly global company, but at the same time, we have a very strong local presence, and that's extremely important to serve our customers where our customers are located, but as well where our customers want and plan to grow.
That's the essence, that's one of the strengths of the company over the last years. We have delivered strong growth over the last couple of years, and that, as the chairman of the board was saying, made us reach, at the end of 2022, EUR 4.5 billion, operating in 37 countries. When I say operating, meaning operating with manufacturing sites. We have 73 manufacturing sites around the world, employing close to 19,000 employees, and we have reached, as said, EUR 4.5 billion, with an adjusted EBIT margin of 8% at the end of 2022. Now, my pleasure to introduce you our global executive team.
This is extremely important that, to understand that I said 19,000 or close to 19,000 employees, and it starts with the leadership team of the company, and I would like to introduce each of them one by one, starting with Thomas Geust, our Chief Financial Officer, Marco Hilty, who is President of our business, Flexible Packaging, Eric Le Lay, President of Fiber Foodservice Europe, Asia, Oceania, Ann O’Hara, President of North America, Fredrik Davidsson, Executive Vice President, Digital and Process Performance, Thomasine Kamerling, who is Executive Vice President, Sustainability and Communications, Marina Madanat, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Business Development, Sami Pauni, who is our Corporate Affairs, Legal and General Counsel for the group, and then Ingolf Thom, who is our Executive Vice President for Human Resources and Safety.
I'd like to thank you, my team, for always being together, extremely supportive, collaborative and committed to the future of the company. Now, I would like to explain you, as a background for what comes next, our strategy. I'd like to explain you why we are passionate in the company about packaging, about the packaging for food and everyday necessity, which is essential for the society. Why we are passionate about packaging, but as well, why we are excited about where we are, where we are, how we are positioned, and the strategy that we have. And that's because the packaging industry is going through a substantial transformation as we speak, linked to a number of factors. So when I say a substantial transformation, it may sound challenging. Transformation is challenging, but actually, the transformation we're going through is extremely positive.
Because in an industry, if there is no transformation, then it means that we are in commoditization, and then the name of the game is purely cost. Here, we are in an industry that, because of those factors, is challenged to transform towards the future for a better future. What are the factors of this transformation? This is, number one, the sustainability. The sustainability is linked to primarily regulations, but as well, even more to consumers, who are becoming much more informed than before, much more aware, and I would be tempted to say much more responsible, feeling much more responsible in front of the future generations about what is the legacy that we will leave on, in the planet for the next generations. Linked to the consumers and their expectations on sustainability, then are the customers.
Our customers are expecting us, as a strategic partner, that we help them resolve together, and together is important, that we help them to resolve together the sustainability challenge, the sustainability equation towards the future. But as well, that we help them innovate for functionality, for always better product from a consumption point of view, and that we do that with the scale, globally. That's the big expectation of our customers. And then there is a third transformation, which is the cross-fertilization in the value chain. Many years ago, a company could pretend to do it alone. Nowadays, the technologies, the challenges are so complex that it requires partnership into the value chain, and it requires partnership, particularly when there are technologies which are emerging, and where we need, as a company, to embark into investing, into making the bet on new, on new innovative solutions.
This transformation, as I said, the one thing to remember is that it's, we believe, extremely positive. It's offering lots of opportunities in the industry, and we believe that with our technologies, we are very well positioned to capture the growth opportunities, and I would be tempted to say even the value opportunities that it represents for us going forward. So based on this, what is the strategy that we have built back in 2020 for the decade, and that we have updated very recently? You may remember that we, exactly a month ago, on the 27th of March, communicated our updated 2030 growth strategy. The reason we updated it is exactly this transformation that I was mentioning, which is accelerating, and therefore, we believe that we need to sharpen our strategy. Our strategy is based on four strategic imperatives.
The number one, which is absolutely a must, is to continue scaling our profitable core business around the world in the categories where we have a core profitable business. Number two, as suggested before, is to develop new solutions, develop technology-driven innovations, and do it at scale. And we do it under a branding, a Huhtamäki branding called blueloop, which goes across all our portfolio for anything which is our new innovative portfolio for sustainable solutions. Imperative number three, we want to step up in our operational performance in order to always be as competitive as possible in a market that is demanding. And all this will be done thanks to people. It doesn't happen just because we say, "Here is the strategy." It all depends on 19,000 people around the world.
And therefore, we have an imperative, which is to empower our people to succeed. And to empower our people to succeed, our responsibility as a company is to give them the tools, the competencies, and to develop the capabilities that are necessary for the future of the company, based on this industry transformation. And we have five strategic capabilities that we want to not just build, we want to further develop. We have already, we believe, some strength into, but we want to further develop and accelerate the strength that we have. And that has to do with sustainability, again, digitalization. It has to do with innovation, customer excellence, and world-class operations. Those are the five imperatives in terms of strategic capabilities that will make us capable of delivering on our strategy and on our ambition.
Now, I said before that we are excited to be in this industry and with all the opportunities, and now I will give you a little bit of more granularity on what makes us really convinced that there is a lot of value in the future. It's because focusing on the core, on scaling our core and on the innovation, two key data, I will not throw too many information immediately now. But on the core business, we are in a market with our three technologies. We are in an overall market that we estimate to be, by the end of the decade, of an addressable market for our business of EUR 600 billion. In this market, the growth is estimated to be, on average, on annual basis, 3%-5%. That's a very important thing to remember.
That's our estimate of the growth of the core business, 3%-5%. It depends on categories and geographies. Now, the second aspect that really is exciting is in our strategy, we have committed to make all our products sustainable, meaning recyclable or compostable or reusable by 2030. That means 100% of our packaging will be designed for circularity. Now, when we look at the industry today, the packaging industry, about 30% of the packaging is sustainable according to that definition. Closing the gap from 30% to 100% means a huge growth and value opportunity for us as we make it our strategic priority to develop innovation for sustainable packaging solutions.
So that's really the essence of why we believe, with our strategy, we can increase our ambition from an economic point of view, which we have presented back in on the 27th of March. That financial ambition is to continue increasing dividends, EPS, earnings per share, and dividend through our policy of a payout of 40%-50% every year, increasing every year, as the chairman of the board said already. That will happen thanks to our ambition on the growth and the profitable growth. We are raising our growth ambition to be 5%-6% in average per year during the decade. Second, by 2027, reaching an adjusted EBIT profit, EBIT margin of 10%-12%. 2022, we were at 8.8%.
We want to increase our return on investment to the range of 13%-15%, and we want to maintain a good financial management of the company, remaining in the corridor of 2x to 3x the adjusted EBITDA, profit in terms of leverage of the company. That's our economic ambition on the long run, as we have updated this strategy and increased our ambition versus the previous one. So now, based on this, let's look at, very quickly, at our business performance. And the business performance, I would like to start it with sustainability, because we have said that sustainability must be in the packaging industry, and it is, at Huhtamäki, at the center of our strategy and at the center of everything we do. So this is not new from this strategy, updated strategy now. We have started this in 2020.
If you remember, when we announced our 2030 strategy, we said sustainability will be embedded in everything we do. What does that mean? We have raised commitments, plans, our ambition into different areas of the sustainability, well, all the relevant areas. Number one, in the materials. So that means we are having the ambition to only source responsibly. We want to prioritize renewable sourcing, of, of materials. The second chapter of sustainability is our operations, improving, reducing the emissions from our operations, being carbon neutral by 2030 in our, in our manufacturing production. And that means, for instance, using renewable electricity, for instance. And you may see on the screen that, at the end of 2022, we are using 25%, 24.9% to be really precise, of renewable electricity.
At the end of the first quarter, it's already 35%, actually, this year. Just to remember and put things in perspective, in 2019, we were at 0%. We were just starting. So that's an example in the operations. In the operations, it has to do as well with composting or recycling the industrial waste that we are producing. Third chapter of sustainability is circularity, and I mentioned it already, so I'm repeating myself, saying that we are committed to design 100% of our packaging solutions for recycling, compostability or reusability by 2030. And the last point, extremely important, is we want to have a positive impact on people.
Positive impact on people in the communities where we operate, of course, and particularly with our employees, being own employees or contracted employees, with a clear focus on safety, which, you may say was not in the strategic priorities, and it's not in the strategic priorities because we consider it a license to operate. Safety is, for us, a license to operate. It is, the way we see it, and therefore, this is the extremely important aspect. Now, on this sustainability, you may say this is ambitions. And with ambitions, we need to absolutely, if we raise commitments to 2030, which are ambitious, then we are measuring our progress. So we have established, since 2020, a dashboard, like we do on the financials. We have every quarter a reporting from every single site in our company.
We consolidate, and we have our performance on sustainability. We measure our progress. We have made good progress in 2020, very good progress in 2021, again in 2022, and this has been recognized externally by the, how should I say, indexes of reference in sustainability. For instance, we got the gold medal of EcoVadis, and we got an upgrade of our score, from BBB to A from the MSCI index. This is for sustainability. On the financials on 2022 and I'm repeating a little bit what the chairman of the board said already on, on the year 2022. We reached EUR 4.5 billion. That's a reported net sales growth of 25%, comparable net sales growth of 15%, and the adjusted profit, EBIT profit, as well increased by 25%.
Important to mention, I mentioned before about our aim to maintain in good financial management of the company from a balance sheet point of view. We have, in the year 2022, improved our leverage from 3.1x the adjusted EBITDA at the end of 2021, to a score of 2.5x at the end of 2022. Without getting you in too much into details, I would say that all our four different segments have contributed in a comparable manner in terms of growth during the year 2022. In the first quarter of 2023, and that's what we have, the results we have released this morning, we have a stable development of our sales. The comparable sales growth is actually +2%.
The reported is about zero, flat, and the reason is the divestment of our Russian operations between the reported and the comparable sales. A slightly lower profit delivered in the first quarter, but again, impact mainly coming from the divestment of our Russian operations. I think the highlight of the quarter one, 2023, is that we have been prioritizing defending our margin in a very challenging environment, with still a lot of inflation, with the return on the demand, the return to seasonality, which in a way is a good thing because it means that the supply chain is more stable, more predictable, but it affects Q1 versus the other quarters.
We see as well pressure on the demand from the inflation, pressure on consumption, and we see as well some de-stocking linked to the better predictability of the supply chain than companies in the value chain are de-stocking, while in 2022, there was concerns on availability of materials and products, and therefore, many companies across the value chain were, there was no exception with our customers, were, you know, prioritizing buying more than the yearly consumption. That, so that de-stocking is as well a temporary effect. A highlight of the quarter is the strong cash flow at +EUR 43 million, which is a good improvement compared to last year. A strong improvement, I think around EUR 100 million better than last year, first quarter.
This is linked to overall performance, but particularly in the working capital, this is another focus that we have for 2023, is to manage carefully our cash flow. And this means that on the leverage, we have improved further, slightly, the leverage from 2.5 to 2.4. I may be repeating what the chairman of the board said already, but we believe it's so positive that it should be mentioned. We had an EPS, earnings per share, in 2022 that allowed the Board of Directors to propose a dividend of EUR 1 for the year. It's the 14th consecutive year that Huhtamäki is delivering an increasing dividend in absolute terms.
Needs to be remarked, because I think it is a unique case in Finland, and the average growth of the dividend per year over the last 14 years is 8%. So quickly, a few concluding remarks from my side, to say that we are not only passionate about the essential nature of packaging for the society, we are excited about the opportunities that are in front of us and about our strategy, how to grab these opportunities in the market and accelerate the value creation for the company. And that has to do with three things.
Number one, our vision, our strong vision about the transformation of the packaging industry, particularly in our segments of food and everyday necessities, where our purpose, our view, our vision of the company to protect food, people, and the planet, makes us direct and prioritize innovation for better products, for sustainable products. That's the number one thing, is the vision that we have for the future. Number two is the strength, and the strength I would like to rely on our customer voice on this. Our strength, our customers are saying that we are a strategic and reliable partner over time, enabling growth and scale where they want to plan and where they want to grow in the world. Another strength is our global footprint and local presence close to our customers where they operate.
Another strength is the technologies that we have, and the strength of our people, of course, committed around the world. And the last thing is about the opportunities, and I may repeat myself, but I think it's important that in our core business, the opportunity is an underlying growth of the market across categories and regions of 3%-5%, and a huge opportunity of growing if we continue innovating for sustainable packaging solutions. So that is, in essence, what makes us really passionate and excited, inspired every day about Huhtamäki, and why we believe that this strategy of redesigning the future of sustainable packaging solution is going to increase value creation for the company and for the shareholders that trust the company.
With this, I would like to thank the Board of Directors for their continuous support and as well, insights during the year, all along the year. I would like to thank the executive team for, you know, your commitment, support, friendship, collaboration, and I want to thank as well, the, all the employees around the world, for their commitment, loyalty, and performance on a daily basis. And I want to thank you, dear shareholders, for, your, your confidence and for your trust. Thank you.