Thank you very much. Dear Wärtsilä shareholders, board of directors, and the board of management, it's a real pleasure to welcome you all to our Annual General Meeting Today. My name is Håkan Agnevall, and I am the President and CEO of Wärtsilä. It's a great privilege to be the President and CEO of Wärtsilä, I must say. I would like to take the opportunity also to give a very special welcome to our group of stock market youth ambassadors. You see, you have adopted the Wärtsilä colors. If you can all stand up, you represent the future. Come on, guys. All right. Please, you can be seated again. We don't need to stand the whole session. We hope today that we can inspire you to spread the word about Wärtsilä as a great company to invest in, and also maybe a great place for your future careers.
As our chairman highlighted, 2024 was a year of all-time highs for Wärtsilä, in order intake, absolute operating income, and in cash flow. We significantly enhanced the profitability of all our businesses, and our order book is at a record high level. We will continue to gain momentum on our journey of improving profitability. We have a higher portion of equipment orders compared to turnkey projects, and we will also benefit from the structural changes and operational improvements that we have made the last years. We continue to strengthen Wärtsilä by focusing on our profitable core business. These businesses are very well placed to capture the many opportunities offered by the decarbonization transformation. Our strategy, the Wärtsilä Way, is yielding results. We have a clear path to our 12% operating margin target over the coming few years.
However, we also underline that the recent geopolitical uncertainty makes forward-looking statements more challenging. In the past year, we announced changes to strengthen our executive team, and it's a real pleasure to have our Board of Management with me here today. If we start, we have our Chief Financial Officer, Arjen Berends. From our businesses, we are joined by Anders Lindberg, the President of Energy, and by Tamara de Gruyter, our President of Portfolio Business. Roger Holm, our President of Marine, is unfortunately unable to join us in person today as he's meeting with customers, and I'm sure we will benefit from that at the next annual general meeting. From our group functions, we have Teija Sarajärvi, who is the Executive Vice President for Human Resources.
We have Kari Hiltanen, our Executive Vice President for Corporate Relations and Legal Affairs, and Anu Sirkiä, Executive Vice President for Marketing and Communications. Anu joined us in November with an impressive track record from a range of international businesses. She has already begun making important contributions to strengthening Wärtsilä's position as a thought leader in our industries and beyond. At Wärtsilä, public affairs and sustainability continue to grow in strategic significance as we shape the decarbonization of marine and energy. Therefore, Kari Hiltanen will take up the role of Executive Vice President for Public Affairs and Sustainability starting from April 1st. On the same date, we will also welcome Nora Steiner-Forsberg to the Wärtsilä Board of Management as Executive Vice President for Legal and Compliance. Nora joins us from Fortum and brings extensive experience from the energy sector as well as from leading law firms and international business.
We have a strong and seasoned executive team that is leading Wärtsilä through the decarbonization transformation, and I am really pleased to see that we continue to increase the share of female leaders in the team. The market environment for our business remained relatively stable throughout 2024. Our Chairman described how geopolitical tensions and the risk of protectionism clearly increased as the year progressed, which caused macroeconomic uncertainty to increase further. Despite these challenges, our customers in marine and energy industries remain increasingly focused on decarbonization. In the energy market, the transition towards renewables continues to advance. Wind and solar are expected to post record installations in 2024 and 2025, and this is not only driven by climate concerns, but it is also by the fact that wind and solar are some of the most affordable sources of energy in many parts of the world.
Renewables are intermittent, and therefore, as their share in the energy mix grows, so does the demand for balancing technologies. In 2024, both thermal balancing and battery energy storage experienced their highest level of growth in the market to date. On the marine side, the need to decarbonize continues to grow. A major driver has been the target of the International Maritime Organization to reduce greenhouse gases from ships to net zero by or around 2050. Meanwhile, in the EU waters, emissions from large vessels became subject to carbon emission trading at the start of last year. The growing trade volumes and changing trade flows, coupled with the decarbonization momentum, significantly boosted demand for ship capacity in 2024, and this in turn supported the Wärtsilä demand for both new builds and services. The market sentiment was positive, with robust growth in key customer segments for new vessels.
Demand for services was supported by decarbonization-related retrofits and longer trade routes. Investments in new ships were clearly above the level seen in 2023, and we saw a healthy pickup in interest towards alternative fuels, which in 2024 accounted for 49% of the capacity of the contracted vessels. The health and safety of our personnel is key to our success in Wärtsilä. We are committed to our long-term goal of achieving zero lost time injuries, and last year, we reduced the total recordable injury frequency, we call it the TWIF, from 2.6 down to 2.2. We strengthened our safety culture with a zero-mindset campaign. The theme of our October Safety Day was "Mind Your Head," focusing on both physical and mental well-being. The diversity of our workforce strengthens our competitive edge and our innovation, thanks to a wider variety of perspectives and experiences.
Currently, our 18,300 employees represent 128 nationalities in 77 countries. Last year, we carried out our two-yearly employee engagement survey; we call it the MyVoice, and our response rate of 88% scores very favorable against international benchmarks. The results indicate that our employees take great pride in working for a company which is committed to making a positive impact to the world. Close to 90% of the respondents stated high levels of job satisfaction, respect at work, and inclusivity. These outcomes show that we are making good progress in building teams of competent, motivated professionals and establishing Wärtsilä as an attractive employer with a strong culture. We are on a journey to develop Wärtsilä continuous improvement as an important driver of customer focus and competitiveness. In 2024, we set up the governance for the framework, and we began promoting learning and pilots across the organization.
There is a tidal wave of continuous improvement initiatives underway, with outcomes including everything from better customer service, fewer mistakes and errors, and significantly lower claim resolution time. 2024 was the third full year of the Wärtsilä Way, and we made great progress in its execution. The Wärtsilä Way sets our direction for profitable growth. Our value creation potential is based on two strategic themes: transform and perform. Transform is all about the decarbonization journey, creating new business opportunities by leveraging growth in sustainable electricity generation, balancing power, and green marine transport. The perform theme focuses on improving our operational performance and achieving our financial and sustainability targets. These outcomes are supported by improved risk management, robust execution, and a mindset of continuous improvement. Wärtsilä is extremely well positioned to capture the opportunities in the decarbonization.
We continue to focus on innovation, focused investments, and selective partnerships while growing all dimensions of our service business by moving up the service value ladder. We are already the market leader in some of the major technologies that are needed for a sustainable future. Wärtsilä has the industry's most comprehensive offering for decarbonization, focusing on fuel flexibility, efficiency optimization, and emission abatement technologies, and digital services. The widely adopted target of reaching net zero around the middle of the century is the lifespan of a single vessel or a single power plant away. The technology decisions for new assets are being made now, and it's therefore crucial for our customers that the solutions we provide are fuel flexible, capable of running on sustainable fuels once these become readily available.
In 2024, Wärtsilä's R&D expenditure again represented around 4.6% of net sales, and we strengthened our position as a leader in innovation with several world's firsts. I'll give you a couple of examples. In June, we launched the world's first large-scale 100% hydrogen-ready engine power plant concept. This solution can use natural gas today to provide flexibility and balancing and can be converted to run on hydrogen, therefore future-proofing the journey to net zero. In August, Wärtsilä announced a landmark deal with the Norwegian shipping operator Eidesvik to supply the equipment to convert an offshore supply vessel to operate with ammonia fuel. The vessel, the Viking Energy, is set to become the world's first ammonia-fueled in-service ship in 2026. This is a landmark in the marine industry's transition to sustainable fuels.
After a successful pilot in 2024, we are now preparing for a commercial launch of onboard carbon capture and storage in 2025. Our carbon capture ready scrubbers are already available today, and we expect total investments in marine retrofits, including carbon capture solutions, to reach EUR 15 billion-EUR 20 billion over the next decades. That's a significant opportunity for Wärtsilä. Wärtsilä's target position of shaping the decarbonization of marine and energy is supported by our Set for 30 commitment. As I highlighted, we took important steps in 2024 towards our targets to provide a product portfolio ready for zero carbon fuels by 2030, and we are well on track. We are also committed to becoming carbon neutral in our own operation by the same year. In 2024, Wärtsilä included a new target under the Set for 30 program.
We are working with our suppliers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 25% until 2030, compared with the 2024 baseline. We are currently collecting the baseline data and developing the target assessment methodology. Last year, we also aligned our sustainability reporting with the European Union CSRD standards for the first time. We successfully reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 50% compared to the 2021 baseline. This is aligned with our carbon neutrality pathway. Our efforts in 2024 focused on continuing the purchase of green electricity. Over 60% of our total electricity consumption last year came from renewable sources. We also actively manage our R&D and factory engine testing and made use of self-generated energy from solar panels installed at our sites.
We are very proud to, last year being ranked among the most sustainable companies in the world by Time magazine and among Europe's climate leader by the Financial Times. In December, Wärtsilä was also included in the European Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the ninth consecutive year. Actively managing our business portfolio is key to our goal of becoming a more focused and profitable company. In December, we announced the agreement to divest our automation, navigation, and control system business, ANCS. Subject to approval, the transaction is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year. The strategic review of energy storage and optimization that we announced in 2023, in October 2023, is still ongoing. All potential alternatives are being considered in order to accelerate energy storage profitable growth in a way that benefits our customers, our employees, and creates value for Wärtsilä shareholders.
We have continued to develop and invest in the energy storage business during this strategic review, and we remain fully committed to serving our customers. In 2024, we concluded the transfer of the Wärtsilä manufacturing site in Trieste to the shipping company MSC. This includes the transfer of 255 employees and is in line with our plan to boost competitiveness and efficiency by centralizing our European four-stroke engine manufacturing to Vaasa. Still, Trieste remains a very important site for Wärtsilä with R&D, sales, and other experts' teams serving customers both in Italy and worldwide. Last year, we continued to make clear progress towards our financial targets of 5% organic growth annually and 12% operating margin. In 2024, our organic net sales grew by 9%, and the operating margin was 11.1%.
We are making steady progress towards our profitability target by moving up the service value ladder, improving the profitability of our new build business, both in marine and energy, increasing the profitability of energy storage, and continuing the divestments of our portfolio business. With the strategy that we have in place and the positive development that we are seeing in service growth and the decarbonization transformation, we consider our operating margin target achievable over a few years. Now, gearing amounted to minus 0.31, which is well below our target of less than plus 0.5. In 2024, Wärtsilä's order intake increased organically by 17%. Service orders increased, driven primarily by growth in marine. Equipment orders increased, supported by higher activity in all businesses. Net sales increased organically by 9% with clear growth in both services and equipment.
I would like to highlight a few of the many important orders that we received during last year. Wärtsilä is a market leader in ship electrification, hybrid solutions, and digital offerings related to marine optimization. In May, we announced that we will supply the electrical systems needed to convert two Scandlines ferries to a plug-in hybrid solution. It's the largest conversion project of its kind worldwide. In a first for the marine industry, we announced the deal to convert one engine out of six of Chevron's LNG carriers from dual fuel to spark gas operation. This conversion aims to reduce the greenhouse gas emission by lowering the methane slip. In the energy industry, the growth in renewable energy deployment resulted in improved demand for engine power plants with good activity, especially in the US.
In September, we announced a contract to deliver four Wärtsilä 50 SG engines to a new power plant for the Kentucky Municipal Energy Agency. In May, we signed a cooperation agreement to deliver on-site power generation for AVK, the largest and fastest growing supplier of power solutions for data centers in Europe. The data center segment has the potential to become an exciting opportunity in the future as the rapid growth of AI continues to push up global electricity demand. Services made up 53% of our sales last year and continue to be a major driver for customer satisfaction and profitable growth. Growing in services is a strategic priority for us. We saw good success in moving our customers up the service value ladder, and the renewal rate of our service agreement is more than 90%.
This, for me, is the ultimate proof point of the value that our lifecycle agreements are creating for our customers. Wärtsilä Service Network supports customer success by enabling maximum uptime and reliability and reducing fuel consumption and total emissions. We have significant growth opportunities at all steps of the service value ladder. By combining AI and data analytics with our people and product know-how, we can support our customers in improving their performance by also improving our own service operation. Among our 2024 highlights was the signing of a five-year lifecycle agreement with the Royal Caribbean Group covering 37 cruise ships. The industry-leading performance-based model means that gains resulting from best operation and maintenance practices will be shared between Royal Caribbean and Wärtsilä. Wärtsilä also renewed and expanded our existing operation and maintenance agreements with QIT in Madagascar to include a decarbonization agreement.
This is a groundbreaking offer in the energy sector because it allows for all assets in a microgrid to be optimized, bringing noticeable cost savings along with reductions of emissions. The comparable operating results increased by 39% to EUR 694 million, which represents 10.8% of net sales. Comparable operating results increased in all businesses. Cash flow from operating activities ended up at an all-time high and totaled EUR 1.2 billion in 2024, supported by the better results and improved working capital. It is important to note that the current negative working capital levels are unusual for our business, and we expect them to normalize going forward. Still, our active works on all elements of working capital have supported us in keeping the level clearly below the long-term historical average.
The board of directors proposes that a dividend of EUR 0.44 per share shall be paid for the financial year 2024. The dividend shall be paid in two installments, one in March and one in September. The outlook for both of our end markets remains positive going into 2025. We expect the demand environment for the coming 12 months to be better than the comparison period in both marine and energy. We also underline that the current high external uncertainties make forward-looking statements more challenging. In 2024, we celebrated Wärtsilä's 190-year anniversary. From our humble beginnings as a village sawmill in Eastern Finland, we are now making an important contribution to the world's decarbonization transition. During these two centuries, our company has repeatedly transformed itself and shaped the industries that we have been operating in.
The common denominator has been our focus on innovation and our commitment to our customers. I must say, the progress that we have today shows that this heritage is still very much alive. Now, Wärtsilä can make a difference to our two industries and to the world. We can secure our financial performance and deliver attractive long-term shareholder value. I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to our customers and partners, as well as to our engaged and committed Wärtsilä team and you, our shareholders. I would like to thank you for your trust in Wärtsilä's future success, and I'm really looking forward to continuing on this exciting journey.