Dear all, I would like to welcome you to the Capital Markets Day for AFRY. It is a pleasure having you all calling in, and of course, this year our Capital Markets Day is slightly different. We will do this digitally today, and for the next two and a half hours, it will be really good for us to talk about our growth story going forward. We are a small team here in Stockholm now, COVID safe, but we also have colleagues who will participate from Finland, from Switzerland, and also from Germany. Again, a warm welcome to this Capital Markets Day. Today, we will talk about our next growth journey. There are basically five key topics that we will present to you today. We will cover our position in our core markets, in the key markets that we are operating in, how we see that moving forward.
We will talk about those segments that we are targeting moving forward. We call them transforming segment, where we see secular growth. We will also today present to you basically our new growth platform when it comes to digital. Of course, we will talk about sustainability and finally, how we drive operation, basically how to make sure that we have a world-class operation. That are the five topics that will be the main theme of the next two and a half hours. By that said, the agenda today, I will start for the next 30 minutes to frame a bit where we are now as AFRY, but also talk a bit about a few key topics moving forward. One of the topic is digital. That will be an essential part of our growth story.
I will also cover a bit how we see the situation in our core markets. I will leave it over to Juuso Pajunen, who's in Finland, our CFO, and he will give you a financial update, but also talk about our operational platforms that we have been working a lot with this year. After that, our Head of Sustainability, Marie Trogstam, will talk about our position in sustainability and our ambition to be a leader in sustainability. We will have a short break, and after the break, I will introduce our Divisional Presidents. They will talk about our transforming segments, those segments that we will have a strong focus to invest in. We will have Malin Frenning, Robert Larsson. We will have Nicholas Oksanen and Richard Pinnock and Roland Lorenz.
All five of them will present the situation, and they will focus on our four core segments moving forward. We will have a summary, and we will open up for questions, and I know that there are several of you who have booked one-to-one meetings, starting up at 3:30. That's the rough agenda for today, and I'm so happy that you have taken the time to spend the next two and a half hours with us. Okay, let's start then. Before moving into talking about AFRY, it is clear that I will say it's maybe an understatement to say that we are living in a demanding global environment. We are facing a climate challenge or a climate crisis, you could say. We have a continued urbanization that also drives a lot of needs, not the least in infrastructure.
There's still geopolitical uncertainties. We have, of course, the ongoing pandemic that has affected us all and still do. We have disruptive technology shifts. We will hear a lot about them. If it's in automotive or if it's in the transformation to clean energy, we can see those basically in all segments. There is still an economic volatility across the world. For sure, there are several factors globally affecting also us. However, what we see is that the need for sustainability and also using digitalization is increasing fast. We have all seen it over the last, I would say, 10 years. I would say both, right now, I would say there is an exponential increase in sustainable and digital solution around us. We, as AFRY, we will play a key role into that.
It is absolutely clear that for us at AFRY, 2020 became something else than what we had planned for. As you all know, we closed the deal with Pöyry, biggest acquisition in the history of AFRY, 2019, we moved into 2020 with our growth plans. What happened, of course, that in beginning of this year, we had the pandemic hitting us. I would say for the first, especially quarter two and three, it had a significant impact of our business, where, I mean, we have seen the worst GDP drop in the modern time. For us, we saw significant impact in the automotive segment and related supply chain. We had a period during the spring when it was basically a stop in that business, and that affected us a lot.
We have also seen other sectors like private real estate and infrastructure affecting us. As you all know, we have seen a lower volume both in quarter two and quarter three for AFRY. When that happened, of course, we started to look on mitigation actions. First thing was actually to transform the way we work, to take basically 17,000 employees from working in an office, sitting at clients, working on a project at sites, to distance working using digital tools. That was a big transformation, and we have done it in a good way. Secondly, we had to focus on protecting our balance sheet and profitability, especially since we saw that fast decline in our industrial segment. That meant also that we had to activate a lot of significant cost savings short-term and continue to work on the long-term sustainable cost savings.
We had already started the repositioning of energy that was accelerated. You will hear more from that from Richard Pinnock. We took also more activities in automotive segment. Robert Larsson will talk about that. That kind of was a big part of our activities during quarter two and quarter three. That we have done this year. Looking on our current market situation, I would say it's more or less the same as we communicated in conjunction with our quarter three report. We have seen a stability in the majority of our core segments, including automotive, however, from a much lower level. That's the overall situation. Of course, the ongoing pandemic creates uncertainty, but I would say that both we as a supplier and our client have learned to maneuver in the current environment.
Our feeling is that we have bottomed out, but still there is uncertainties, of course, related to the ongoing pandemic. That basically frames 2020. That has been a lot for us to mitigate the COVID-19. I feel very strong now that after a rough quarter two and a quarter three, that we feel that the market is more stable, and we have activated a lot of actions, and now we are looking for growth moving into 2021. That's basically the story of today. One thing is clear that the whole society is going through a real sustainable transformation. For us at AFRY, we are uniquely positioning to that. You will see as a theme of all presentations today that we're moving towards more and more sustainability in our position, in how we act, but also what we do at our client side.
Not only that, we all know that the European Green Deal, they talk about investment on the size of EUR 1 trillion over the next decade. Many of those areas will drive business for companies like AFRY, for us. We also see the EU taxonomy as something that we will comply with, but we also see it as a business opportunity for us. I have also sent in our commitment letter to the science-based target, and that is something that we are working a lot on, and we have also joined the 1.5 degree Business Playbook. These are a few examples that Marie Trogstam will talk more about the position for AFRY into sustainability, but also how that will drive business for us moving forward.
I also wanted to mention that we have, over the last two years, I would say, also set the base at AFRY with code of conduct that enables us to take on projects globally and feeling extremely solid in the way we act and how we drive those big CapEx projects. Richard Pinnock will talk about that as a part of our energy business as one example. That's a frame of what we have done and what we are doing in the area of sustainability that affects all part of AFRY right now. With that said, as a part of basically working with our strategy, because we have reviewed that during the spring, summer, and we are presenting it today, we have updated our mission. The mission is basically the purpose of a company. Why do you exist?
We're very happy to update our mission. Our mission today is that we accelerate the transition towards a sustainable society. That's basically why we exist. That's our new mission. We are very happy about that. That makes our new updated vision, Simply Making Future. With a strong mission and a strong vision, that basically frames what we are as a company. Of course, in AFRY, as most company, people is everything. Our ability to attract the best ones with the best competence is key. This statement basically frames the way we look on basically the people perspective. We are inclusive and diverse teams with deep sector knowledge. I will talk about when ÅF was founded some 125 years ago. When you look on the history, one thing is clear: we have had deep sector knowledge over all these 125 years.
That's a part who we are. Also the fact that we are inclusive and diverse, we see that as a big part of our people strategy. The fact that we also have rebranded, and have become AFRY from many years as ÅF has been a key for us, sorry, to position us into, not the least, in sustainability. The way we attract our employers and the next generation is key. We have been ranked very high, ÅF for many years. Last year we rebranded to AFRY, and I'm super happy that we still are ranked high on different kind of areas. For example, we are ranked as one of the most equal companies in Sweden, 2020. We are still on a top 10 position when it comes to young professionals, for example, we are number 11 in a Universum ranking.
We used to be on the top three. Clearly since the rebranding, we will fight our way back to a top position. I'm happy that only after one year with AFRY, we are still ranked very high up on those lists. Interesting also is that we are actually ranked as the number one employer when it comes to researchers in Sweden. We have a very strong foundation, strong base also with AFRY in attracting the best employers. Now, before I move into a few other facts about our company, let's talk a bit about the growth journey. I will not spend so much time talking what happened 100 years back, but we're a proud company. We were founded 1895. That makes us 125 years old. We became a listed company in 1986, and we changed the name to ÅF in 2008.
2008, roughly, that was also when the growth journey took off. From being a company with less than SEK 4 billion, we have over the last 10 years, grown to be a company on SEK 20 billion plus. We have done that through organic growth, through shifts, through the different technology shifts, but we have also been a very strong company when it comes to acquisitions. Over the last 10 years, we have made roughly 100 acquisitions, 10 in average per year. Just only the last four years, we have acquired 43 companies. It was as late as 2012 when ÅF entered infrastructure big time. At that time, the business in infrastructure was less than SEK 1 billion. Over the last eight years, we have grown from roughly SEK 1 billion, less in infrastructure, now roughly SEK 8 billion. That's SEK 1 billion plus every year.
When you summarize that. Of course, 2019 was an extremely big year. That's when we concluded the deal with Pöyry, that we joined forces with Pöyry. Pöyry is a proud company, founded 1958 from Jaakko Pöyry, and that together enabled us to become AFRY. When you summarize those years, you have said over the last 10 years, we have had a 15% growth year-on-year. If you just look on the last four years, of course, including Pöyry, we have been growing with 18% year-on-year. It is a strong growth journey. Today, again, we will present for you the next growth journey of AFRY. Talk about Pöyry. I know that people have raised questions. How is it going? Are you done? Is it working as you have planned? I would say we have done a successful integration of Pöyry.
Without Pöyry, we would not be able to set the management team, the organizational structure, and also the AFRY culture as we are creating it right now. We committed, when we did that acquisition, to take out SEK 185 million in cost synergies. We delivered SEK 212 million or even SEK 218 million. I think that's a mistake, it should be SEK 218 million. We also set the base for SEK 120 million in 2020. We have over-delivered also on the SEK 120 million. Juuso also will talk about that, we actually are at SEK 150 million today. Without the integration of Pöyry, without joining forces, that would not have been possible, and we delivered even above our targets. What is even more important is that we have with Pöyry also increased our project capabilities, and we also have a better footprint, a better mix in what we do. I will talk about that also a bit later.
Not only the mix in the country perspective, but we also have a better mix towards those transforming segments that we will talk a lot about today. You will hear a lot from Richard, how we are taking on clean energy, our position in Process Industries, in pulp and paper. We have gained a stronger footprint in Infrastructure, and we also have a Management Consulting business that we did not have before. Also, we have a platform now that we can scale in a different way. People ask about governance. What kind of governance do you have in AFRY? I would say it is the combination of ÅF being very successful in history in the local business, full P&L locally. That's a part of what we do. On top of that, we have also gained now a structure for driving global CapEx business more centrally driven.
We are both. We are still a decentralized company with P&L as far out as possible for the small projects, the service business, et cetera. When it comes to our execution on big CapEx projects, of course, we drive that in a very structured and also central way. Again, we can also scale the country platforms in a different way moving forward because we have the size. I would say that looking on Pöyry and acquisition, when we started to look on that, it has delivered what we wanted, and I'm actually really excited on what we can do jointly together in AFRY moving forward. There's also a lot of questions about top-line synergies, and it's of course not easy to say, "This we would have been winning standalone.
This is coming. These are four examples or projects that neither of us could have taken before. We have some big projects in Finland where we have joined forces together. Also, how we work jointly with our base in Sweden, our biofuel-based plant. We have offshore wind in Vietnam. We have big projects in Denmark, Germany on the infrastructure, and there's another board and pulp mill in Finland. Those are only a few examples of large-scale projects that we have been winning since we joined forces together, ÅF and Pöyry becoming AFRY. Of course, everything is not perfect. We have a lot of work to do, but I would say on all the boxes that we looked on before we took on Pöyry, I'm really pleased on what we have been achieving together. I would say the integration and acquisition of Pöyry have been a success.
If you take one step up again, looking on AFRY. Of course, these are 2019 numbers, and as I talked about before, we have taken a top-line hit this year due to the COVID effect on the areas that we have seen. Last year, more than SEK 20 billion in sales, 17,000 employees, and we have now offices in some 40 countries. Again, it's been a tremendous growth journey that we have done. What maybe is more important is that if you look on a few of these key targets that we have looked at, 2017, we were some number three in the Nordic. We are now number one. You could debate one, two , but we are in the top position in the Nordic. If you look on the 70%, 2017, roughly 50% of our sales was packaged in a project. Now it's 70%.
I think you will hear more from Robert, for example, that our industry division have really gone a journey from a lot of professional service, more and more climbing the value chain, selling a package that can be a team delivery, but a project delivery. Today, 70% of what we sell, what we execute, is packaged in a project, 80% of our sales today is in the five countries, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Switzerland. 2017, we were a Swedish company with some international niches, 90% of the sales was in Sweden, 2017. Now we have a much better platform and also platform for growth. Finally, 70% of our revenue today is going into those four segments that you will hear a lot about today. Again, 2017, some 55% was in those one. Clearly, the reduction in automotive have supported that transformation.
Still, for me, these four areas is actually the foundation for taking the next step in the AFRY growth journey. Now and then people says, "Well, ÅF or ÅF Pöyry, AFRY, it's a complex company." I would not say we are. Basically, we are operating in two segments, two big segments, infrastructure, industry. That's the segment. Then if you look on our geographical position, our markets, as I said on the picture before, there are five countries that sticks out where 80% of our revenue goes to. That's, as you know, the Nordics plus Switzerland. If you look on both infrastructure and a large majority of the industrial portfolio, that's our core focus, those markets. In those markets, we have a scalable platform. We have a one-stop shop, a broad offering.
We have also an international structure for niches, energy, process industry, and we are looking on. You will hear a lot about AFRY. Robert Larsson will talk about some interesting potential in those segment. There we go international, and we have basically even a global structure. Then again, 70% of our revenue goes into these four segments. That's basically frames AFRY. I would not really sign off that we are that complex, and we have now, with the platform we are creating, we are creating a systematic way to scale in those different, both from the markets, but also in those segments. That basically frames the journey so far, what we have created over the last years, the platform, joining forces with Pöyry.
With all that said, we also have said, besides revising our mission, simplifying our vision, we have also set a new ambition for us. We have an ambition to become a European leader in sustainable engineering design and advisory with a global reach. That frames the ambition of AFRY. How are we about to do that? This, again, is the strategic framework that I also introduced this presentation with. I presented to you who we are, and I will say the foundation of us, and I talked about our ambition. Now in the next coming, I will say, more than two hours, we will talk a lot about these five areas that's basically build up our growth journey ahead. How we drive growth in our core markets.
Secondly, which we think is extremely important, we are target those transforming segments where we can see secular growth. There's a lot of changes going on in those, and we have a strong position in the client's value chain. Those are infrastructure, food and life science, clean energy, and bioindustry, 70% of the AFRY portfolio. Thirdly, we have digitalization, and we have worked with that for many years, but we have now a new platform how we at AFRY are taking on digitalization. Basically, digitalization as a new strategic growth platform. Fourth, how we take a position in sustainability, and the fifth, how we operate, how we drive our business, how we make sure that we have a lean operational model. Those five, that's the framework of the next growth journey for AFRY. You will hear now more about that moving forward.
I will start with only one slide talking about the core markets, just start with a simple slide, how we have been developed and how we have taken position over the last years. 2011, we were only strong in Sweden, also reflects, if you remember that we had majority of the sales in Sweden. Now we are top position in Sweden, Finland, also in Switzerland. We are on the top 10 in both Norway and Denmark, clearly, we have ambition to become a top player in those markets. We also believe that looking forward, there are variances, differences between the markets, for sure, we see there's an underlying demand for infrastructure, bioindustry, clean energy, and food and life sciences in the Nordic and including then Switzerland, we also have some other countries we are operating in. Our ambition is clear.
We want to have a top positions in our core markets. As you can see, we are not the top three in all countries, and we need to defend where we already are strong. We are targeting these transforming segments that you will hear more about. We are now ramping up recruitment, driving organic growth. We had to protect ourselves quarter two and three, but I can tell you we are now ramping up our growth journey also organically and the M&A agenda. As you have seen, building AFRY has been a lot of M&As, and going forward, we are now ramping up M&A, both bolt-ons but also strategic platforms. You will hear from Juuso that also our balance sheet is healthy and strong, so we can take that now and drive that forward.
That frames basically how we see our position in those core countries. Again, you will hear more from our different divisional heads about that. I have a few slides about digitalization, AFRY Digital, and how we see that as taking a position in a new strategic platform for growth. It's very important to say that we are not starting from scratch. In the opposite. Over the years, also through acquisition, we have created a strong foundation for digital. We have today a solid position of supplying digital professional service or project to our clients. We are helping a lot of clients becoming more digital broadly at AFRY. We have a very strong base. We have some more than 2,000 experts in digital. Many of them are organized in our industrial division at Robert Larsson, and you will hear a lot from Robert about digital.
For sure, a lot of our people have done a fantastic work in delivering digitalization to our client. Now we have worked together with all the divisions, and we have agreed we will accelerate our digital journey with a new platform, a new thinking that goes across our company. For that, just give you a bit of a glance of what kind of projects we have. This was just a few examples of what we are doing today. You will hear more from Robert Larsson. The fact is that we are not starting from scratch. We have a very strong base. With all that said, we are raising our digital ambition. We have now an ambition to become the driver of industrial digitalization and being the best at applying that in our core sectors.
For that, we have now set a specific revenue target. Within the next five years, we target to triple our digital revenue, and that will then make up more than 20% of the overall group revenue in five years from now. That's an ambitious target, but we have a full commitment to delivering that. We are driving AFRY towards delivering that target. Why do we think that we can be that driver? Well, there are different ways of seeing it. There are different sectors more advanced in digital. Media, banking, telecom, I would say also automotive is quite advanced. There are many sectors, these transforming sectors, infrastructure, bio-industry or energy, buildings even, that are in the early phases. Here with our deep sector knowledge and digitalization, we can play a role helping those clients to become more digital.
We are doing that not only by driving technical solutions in some areas. We are looking on four perspective. How do we accelerate our offering in these core sectors? Also how do we make sure that we become more digital broadly? Thirdly, we are also looking internal digitalization, how to connect our ERP all the way to our clients, becoming more internal digital. Also how can we use that more in creating digital sales model, delivery, and our commercial models. Over the next years, we are looking on AFRY from a whole perspective when it comes to digital. Again, I want to emphasize, we have some 2,000 experts in different competence area like AI, IoT, et cetera. All of them used in transforming those core sectors that we are looking at.
We have done a lot of analysis over the last month, and we feel strong that we have a good base and that we will accelerate that journey. This is just an example when we are looking on those sectors of platform thinking that we can scale jointly in AFRY, meaning that not each division creates their own solution, but that we can create a platform thinking that we then tailor-make out in each of the segments. We see these as examples of needs in different sectors, and that's what we are planning to do. To do that, to support that journey, we will also create something that today have the working name AFRY Digital X. What is that? Well, it's actually a unit that will be working together with the division to scale digitalization.
Our ambition is we will launch that by beginning of next year and ambition is to have 200 employees in that by mid next year. What's the purpose of that unit? We want to rapidly scale our digital offering. How can we combine and work together? Of course, using a divisional and a client interface to deliver all those things that we develop. Being the engine and facilitator to enable systematic investment in digital. Instead of doing it in different areas twice, we will look at it jointly. Function as common interface towards external partners because for sure, we will work more and more in different ecosystems with partners and to have an interface for that. Not the least, drive systematic M&A in the digital space. Those are examples of task for AFRY X. Key is that AFRY Digital is everything.
It's not Digital X, it's the Digital X together with the divisions where we have a lot of competence today. That basically frames my introduction part, where I've talked about where we're coming from, the platform, and looking on the market, and how we take on digital. With that said, I will now leave it over to Juuso Pajunen, who will talk about our financial update and how we are taking on best-in-class operation. For that, we have Juuso in Finland. Juuso, the stage is yours.
Thank you, Jonas. Greetings for all the participants from gray and November-ish Finland. I will take a couple of words on the financial update, where we are and also where we are going, and few words on best-in-class operations and on the journey that we have taken, but also where we are going forward. If we go to the first slide, basically what has happened recently is an unforeseen macroeconomic environment where now from the picture, you can see that Sweden alone dropped 8%, 9% in second quarter of 2020, and that's in a way in the better part of the European countries, for example. We are coming from an extremely difficult macroeconomic environment. Despite that one, what has happened to us, and if we see our numbers and we take a step to the next slide, we have been losing a bit of revenue.
At the same time, we are still on a fairly good level. If we look at the EBITDA line, we have been more or less flattish. You can see in the middle, the rolling EBITDA for the past 12 months, we are slightly down, but given the circumstances, given the macroeconomic turmoil, we have been fairing very stable. At the same time, despite everything that is happening around us in the world, we are improving our balance sheet position. We are at 2.0 on net debt to EBITDA without IFRS 16 and excluding the items affecting comparability. That means that if we take our financial targets, we have very better room to take the next step on growth via M&A. 0.5x EBITDA means roughly SEK 1 billion room for M&A and still be within our financial targets.
At the same time, we are in the middle of quarter four, which is in cash terms, normally a good quarter. We are fairly strong in our balance sheet, and we have room to take the next steps. With these ones, I would like to reiterate our financial targets. On the next slide, we will keep our financial targets unchanged. If we now take a look on those ones, growth 10%, how have we been fairing on these ones? 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, we have been right in the vicinity of the 10%, and 2019, of course, with Pöyry acquisition has been a big one on a 40% level. Our constant average growth rate is 18% for those five years. We need to remember that this 10% target excludes platform acquisitions like Pöyry has been.
Those we are always making on top of the normal target. What I can say is we have delivered growth as we have been indicating and targeting. When we go to EBITDA, we are at 10% in the target level. We have been very flattish around the 9%, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019. 2019 being still an integration year, and we are still more or less flattish around the nine. This is obviously then the step that we need to find our tools and medicines to take the next leap forward or what then. I will talk a bit further on this one in the following slides. The net debt to EBITDA, like I said, 2.0 at the moment, leaving quite a lot of room for M&A as we see fit and as we see opportunities in the market.
Let's go to the following slide and let's start talking about the lean operations. What we have ongoing is a Lean AFRY project. The whole purpose of that project is rebuilding a scalable foundation to our operations. What does it mean? For me, I see our offering and our AFRY as a house. There are three building blocks as the foundation at the bottom of everything. Those are transactional service centers, digital platforms, and centers of excellence. These ones will create frames and structures that allow us to be lean and efficient. On top of that one, we have all the time the decentralized decision-making culture. We are not sacrificing that one. We are not changing the AFRY DNA. Decisions are being made close to the client, close to the employee, in the levels where you have the best power to make the decision.
The foundation blocks should provide transparency and timely information and timely tools to make those decisions. On top of these foundational blocks, we start building the divisional offering and in the end, serve our clients. If we think about what is the target of the Lean AFRY project, in very simple terms, we want to break the bad pattern where revenue has been growing, but the EBITDA has been stable. If you just take 2014-2018, excluding the transformational year of 2019, revenues have been growing from SEK 9 billion to SEK 14 billion, but at the same time, the EBITDA has been more or less flat. We have been on the 9% levels. We want to break that pattern. If we look a bit deeper on the following slides, what are we doing and what does it mean?
The first part of the building block is the efficient transactional service centers, the back office support, however you want to call it. We have taken the first steps already from late 2018. The Pöyry deal was announced in December 10, if I recall correctly, on 2018, and immediately after that one, and then on the closing in late February 2019, we have gone to the post-merger integration, realization of the cost synergies. We delivered SEK 218 million against a target of SEK 180 million. Ticker box, done, closed, successfully executed. We at the same time knew that we have long tail with IT and facilities. Now we go to 2020, 2021. Already in February 2020, we told that we are targeting a SEK 120 million cost savings. What we can now say that we are on track. Just today, the realization is now to SEK 150 million.
At the same time, we need to remember and understand that the world around us has changed quite a lot. At the same time, what I can say is that our baseline is different than in February 2020, and our ambition is different than in 2020, February. We are pushing this one forward, and that's why also I know that you would like to hear me use word integration synergies. We are past integration. We are looking for the efficiency and the scalable platforms that go beyond the integration. That's why we are talking about Lean AFRY rather than a second wave of Pöyry integration. What we are doing is we are building up the transactional services, but at the same time, we want to leverage our scale in the core countries. We can buy better, we can consolidate better.
If you take IT, you take facilities, but also of the smaller ones, mobile phones and so on. When we leverage our scale, we get better terms, cheaper price, and thus better margins. This is what we are now doing at the moment. We have the second building block, digitalization, digital platforms. For me as the CFO, ERP is the big thing. Obviously underneath that topic, we have also AutoCADs and the professional tools that we can use better and better, reap the benefits of efficiency. From my perspective, ERP is the one that will have the back office and the foundational impact throughout our organization. What do we target with that ERP? It is basically removing friction between businesses and thus improving project margins.
People can see which projects are ongoing, which has either resources, which has need for resources, and then you can just call the project manager, "I'm here," or project manager calls you, "I would need you, book the hours," and everything else happens in the back office automatically. That means that we share the culture, we share the language, and little by little, the collaboration improves and the friction goes away. Obviously, modern tools allow digitalization, allow automation, optimization of back office support. This work is now ongoing. In 2021, we start the implementations of first wave, and then we continue country by country, targeting our core countries first until we have implemented the whole AFRY. This is a big journey ahead of us, but we have done it. I have done it personally with Pöyry.
We have taken many of these steps earlier. We systematically continue that work to take it to the goal. The third building block on the following slide are the excellence centers. Given our global presence, our footprint in the developing economies, we are in a very good position to import a bit lower cost engineering into higher cost countries. We have been continuously doing that one. We have been doing it from an opportunistic perspective, from a bit sporadic way of working. Within a division, very good ways of working. Take Process Industries who have Poland and China in their delivery centers, very strong, very integrated offering towards our clients, or Industrial & Digital Solutions, same from India and China or Energy from Thailand.
We have seen that it can be done, but at the same time, maybe we have not concentrated into this delivery model enough, and we can do it with a holistic view, structured ways of working even better, bringing at the same time better value add for our clients, but also expanding our margins. This is the third foundational block for our Lean AFRY. If we take then, what does it mean? If we go to the final slide of my words, we will see basically that this is one of the key things, the whole Lean AFRY, the three foundational blocks on transactional service centers, digital platforms, and excellence centers. Those are, give or take, 50% of our journey towards the 10%. If we take consensus October 20, I think it's 8.4%, give or take.
Obviously, it includes a bit of slack from COVID, from that, we start pushing our journey towards the 10. If you put it in a ballpark, 50% is coming from Lean AFRY, shared services, operational excellencies, and the efficiency supported by ERP. Whether it's project margin expansion, whether it's more efficient back office operations, whether it's simply intangible cultural improvements, that is the place that can deliver us quite a lot of value. As said, we have done it as a corporate. I have done it personally with my legacy from Pöyry. I have no doubt that we have interesting but also fruitful journey ahead of us in these topics. We have the second part of this one. It is a fact that we will not reach 10% without growth.
We have lost a bit of revenue now during the past six months of COVID, but even ignoring that one, we would need to grow a bit. The whole idea is that when we have the best-in-class operations, you can't grow the fixed expenses, SG&A expenses, at the pace your revenue grows. Every time you take organic growth, take 5% organic, 5% M&A, you need to grow a bit less in the expense side, and then you are taking the step towards the 10% margin. We want to have that growth, we need to have that growth, and we need to be investing also in that growth.
The other part comes obviously from M&A, where you have an interesting multiple play game, but at the same time, every time you buy something, you need to bring the companies within AFRY platform, within AFRY ways of working, and thus do it a bit more efficiently than earlier. With these three steps, I'm confident that we can basically transform ourselves from 8.4 current EBITDA, 8.7 previous year EBITDA, to the 10%. Obviously, you will ask from me, when will it happen? I can guarantee you it's not today, but at the same time, tomorrow is not that far away. With these ones, we reiterate our financial targets, 10% growth, 10% EBITDA, 2.5 on leverage, and we are simply Making Future. Handing back to you, Jonas. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Juuso. Well presented, clear as always, and I know that you will also be up for the one-to-one meetings, and you will also be here for the questions, but well presented, Juuso. We have covered, I talked about digitalization and the markets. Juuso talked basically at the number five now on this list of our growth journey, the scalable platforms and our lean operational model. Now I want to introduce Marie Trogstam, who will talk about a theme that goes across everything, sustainability and how we at AFRY are taking a position into that. Welcome on stage our head of sustainability, Marie Trogstam.
Thank you very much. Thanks. As Jonas started off saying, we are currently experiencing global challenges within, for example, health, the climate, and the economics. For example, then started off with the climate change. Based on science, we know that we need to stay well below the 2 degrees Celsius target. According to Carbon Law, we need to then cut the global CO2 emissions in half by 2030 and reach close to net zero by 2050 in order to limit the global warming to 1.5 degree target where we need to aim for. This means also that the emissions must peak already this year. Another important global challenge is also the rising sea levels. That actually means that 1 million people will be affected by 1 cm of rise.
Another one is the extreme poverty that were actually decreasing, but due, unfortunately, to COVID-19, we see now an increase for the first time in decades. Another important challenge is the biodiversity loss, where we see the sixth mass extinction of wildlife that is accelerated by human activities. The last global challenge I want to mention is that 2 billion people are living in countries that are already suffering from water stress. These are the challenges, but then where is it that we want to be? It is kind of widely accepted now that the recovery during and after COVID-19 must be aligned with the 1.5 degree target, but also towards the 2030 sustainable development agenda.
The technical solutions, as we've heard a lot already, are already there, but in order to reach this exponential development, we need to find the sustainable options that we can leverage at scale within, for example, sectors of energy, industry, buildings, and food consumption. Digitalization, and also sustainable finance will support that. We have, for example, then the European Green Deal, as Jonas mentioned, that will be materialized, supported by EUR 1.3 trillion, I should say, for that sustainable investment over a decade. Also in addition to that, we have the E.U . Taxonomy that will help us as a company, as a guiding framework to know what sectors and economic activities we should focus on in order to accelerate this sustainability transition.
Here, AFRY is coming in, as Jonas already mentioned, and Juuso as well, about our key transforming sectors within clean energy, bioindustry, infrastructure, and then food and life science that actually constitute then about 70% of our business. Hence, sustainability is truly integrated into our business. In order then to understand where we can actually make a difference, we need to speak about the impact we can have. We look, of course, through the whole value chain, upstream through our suppliers, our own operations, but also with a major focus on the downstream. Of course, we need to minimize the negative impact we have, the footprint, but the focus will be to maximize, optimize the positive impact, the handprint we have downstream through our sustainable solutions. Then we will add this net positive impact we can have.
The next step then, what is sustainability for us and how will we address it? The first part is that with lots of experts around the globe with both deep and wide expertise in terms of sustainable solutions, we need to make sure to walk the talk in terms of also improving, continuously improving our own climate impact related to how we travel, how we actually then have the facility energy usage, but also to continue, as Jonas also said, to focus our efforts on diversity and inclusion and the ethics and compliance part as well. Indeed, it's key also to measure our improvements, and we have here our CO2 emission target to cut our own emissions in half by 2030 and then leverage this for the net zero target under 2050. The next area we will focus on is transforming our company at scale.
That means, of course, to improve how we integrate sustainability into our broad offering. One way of doing that is to start by updating our sustainability e-learning to make sure that all our employees are actually aligned with what our clients are requesting in terms of climate awareness, but also that we know about low-emission techniques. We will also continuously improve the way we measure in terms of both footprint and handprint, and also make sure to assess how we are EU taxonomy aligned. That will be key moving forward.
To sum this up, of course, as we've said a lot of times now, we will focus on where we actually have the biggest impact, and that's within the four transforming segments. This very key statement that we actually can be the enabler for the sustainability transition, and we will have a continuous commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN Global Compact, and other key and important sustainability frameworks. We have also a great focus on different indices, and we have quite recently received an upgraded MSCI rating from A to AA. We're also focusing on the Carbon Disclosure Project, where we have a B rating. Just to stress, the EU Green Deal and the EU Taxonomy will support our growth.
AFRY is then well-positioned to be an enabler aligned with the EU Taxonomy in terms of our presence, our ambitions, and our offerings, also in areas as climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, and the transition to circular economy. We will indeed focus on climate action, both for our own operations, as Jonas said, we have just handed in our commitment letter to the Science-Based Targets initiative to align our own work with a science-based approach. Also, of course, climate actions will be affecting our offerings. I would like to mention two important areas here. The first one being that we are now launching a new target for the pulp industry to reduce the water usage with at least 20%, and our Head of Process Industries, Nicholas Oksanen, will come back to that.
The other important area is here that we will then exit any new build coal project from January 1st, in order to that the decarbonization of the energy industry is of course key to facilitate and reduce the reliance on fossil resources and specifically coal power generation. Our Head of Energy Division, Richard Pinnock, will come back and speak more about this important step just in short. Since we are now the enabler for the sustainability transition, of course, we also want to leverage that by being a core partner in different corporations. The first one is, as also Jonas mentioned, the 1.5 degree Business Playbook that supports us in our climate strategy work and also gives us the latest research and well-renowned scientists such as Johan Rockström being part of that.
We also have the Swedish government commitment to climate change measures. Here we have our Head of Infra Division, Malin Frenning, being part of the government committee on climate action by the business community. We are truly proud about our cooperation with the Gapminder Foundation, where we jointly then will work to find systematic misconceptions about the world, through this fact-based worldview, also soon launch a knowledge test on how we will improve the basic knowledge about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Another important area for us is to work together with United Nations as a key enabler also for the global transformation.
We've been participating in the High-level Political Forum towards the Sustainable Development Goals, and also then in Madrid last year with part of group executive management in the COP25, where our key topic in the multi-stakeholder dialogue was to drive the initiative, how we could use and leverage the experiences from a Nordic perspective also into developing economies in terms of the energy transition. Related to that, I also wanted to mention the RenewAfrica initiative that is focusing then on how to scale up renewable power in Africa, and where Jonas participated in a meeting quite recently with the Executive Vice-President for the European Commission, Frans Timmermans.
By this, I just like to end by saying that we really focus on being the enabler for the sustainability transition, both in terms of our own operations, but also with the focus on our sustainable solutions and how we can leverage specifically in the four transforming segments. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Marie. I have to say that joining this company more than three years back, there are many reasons to be proud, but what Marie just presented is truly a reason to be proud working for AFRY, everything that we do in sustainability. With that, we have heard the first three speakers, and we have now a very short break. Fill up coffees, take a short break, and we will be back in five minutes. Thanks for listening, and see you back in five minutes.
[Break]
Welcome back to all of you. I hope you had a good short break. Now we are coming to a part of this afternoon when we will listen to our Divisional Presidents talking exactly about those transforming segment that we will invest into moving forward.
The first one on stage is Malin Frenning, who will talk about infrastructure, a big topic for us. Welcome on stage, Malin. Let's talk about infrastructure.
Thank you, Jonas. I am Malin Frenning, heading the Infrastructure Division. I'm very happy today to go through and introduce the journey ahead for us. Before we do that or before I do that, I would like to maybe start with the most important, what we do with our clients and show some projects that we have been working very proudly with during this year and previously. I start with the film.
In Division Infrastructure, we're meeting the challenges of the future in real estate, transport infrastructure, and water. We shape livable cities with solutions for people and goods to move freely. We make the buildings of tomorrow energy efficient and sustainable. We help design the world's longest immersed tunnel. We shape sustainable travel, designing the new tram solution for Tampere. We provide award-winning design for the Blominmäki Wastewater Treatment Plant, future-proofing the Helsinki region. We provide innovative lighting design here at The Twist in Norway. We have developed a unique sound identity for NEVS' first self-driving car. We lead the field in visualization using game engine technology for building design, mining, road, and rail projects. Division Infrastructure, embracing engineering and design in real estate, transport infrastructure, and water.
Let's start then. We are 6,000 engineers and designers that work with our more than 13,000 clients. We are in five core countries and three countries where we have a niche of our portfolio. Today, more than 70% of our clients are from public, and we are also having more than 90% of our business in projects, and that has improved over the years. In total, we are 40% of AFRY regarding net sales. Let's start with our client segments, and I just want to emphasize the three segments that we are working with. This is the client or how we address the market segments. It's not similar to our organization, which is more based on competence areas. This is how we go together, meeting the possibilities and opportunities, and also our client needs.
Let's start with the real estate first, where we have several sub-segments like commercial buildings, public, hospital, industries, and also residential buildings. The whole real estate segment is then the share of net sales with 45%. The transport infrastructure with roads, railways, airports, and also seaports. That is segments that we have in eight countries today and representing 36% of our total net sales. The third core segment that we have and meeting the clients in is within water. The sub-segments that we are working within is the water utilities, but also the industrial. That is a smaller client segment compared with the other two, but it is important and growing. You also heard Marie mention the water part, and I will come back to that further on.
In the fourth segment, that's where we meet our fellow divisions and where we work together in AFRY, and these are two example of sub-segments where we go together, the energy infrastructure and mining, you will hear more about that further on today as well, and that is representing 14% of our net sales. Infrastructure is coming from a long history of growth. Growth has been a part of our DNA for more than 10 years back, you heard Jonas talked about that before. For infrastructure in ÅF at that time, it started already in 2012 with approximately a net sales of between SEK 1 billion and SEK 2 billion. That increased up to 2019 with almost SEK 8 billion, or to be exact, SEK 7.6 billion.
Over the years, the profitability has been stable between 10% and 12%, which you can see in the graph, ending up end of 2019, slightly declining directly under 10% due to the integration with Pöyry Infra that caused then the lower margin during the year. Focus from that, from 2019, has been to leveling out the decrease and stabilize the profitability moving ahead. The focus has been on productivity and efficiency, but also improving units that we have had a challenge with the profitability, but we have also worked a lot with our cost in that part. Also, I would say, reviewing our portfolios. Not only in one country, we have worked with all our countries and doing, I would say, what was needed for further growth to consolidate but also stabilize us moving forward.
Moving into 2020, I need also to mention COVID-19, because the pandemic has also, I would say, hit us a little bit in the real estate segment and challenged us. I would say the pandemic is still here, and we have seen that mainly in some segments. Jonas mentioned a few, but I can also say that we have seen a slight decline or postponements in, for example, in municipality segments. That, of course, affects several parts of our business. How did we see upon the market so far, and what have we seen during 2020? To summarize, we saw a mixed market development, and again, from the client point of view with our three segments. Let's start to say that we are acting in five core, five main markets with a very strong sort of demand of our services.
Within real estate during 2020, we were coming from a very high level of investments in the market. I think everybody said also, every report said it was cooling down a little bit. We saw that it was a negative market development during the year in real estate due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In transport infrastructure, the market was more resilient overall. We also see largely the investments driven from the government budgets, but also a very strong development overall. The water market was stable with healthy underlying demand. That shows also potential for further growth. How did we do then, 2020 in the division? In the real estate, we had a solid performance on par with market, despite, I would say, COVID pandemic.
In transport infrastructure, we saw a lower growth in some markets due to the need of integration and also consolidation from many years of growth. I would say the consolidation was needed to act upon already then. In water, we had a strong development, compared to the market, and that is also with the healthy underlying demand that was driving that. How do we see upon the next step? What are we doing now? I think moving out, from 2020 to more into the agenda for 2021, we had a very solid performance or strength or platform to stand on. We have a strong position in our home markets together with other AFRY divisions. We also have a very strong client relations and solid domain knowledge.
I think coming back to who we are, we have a strong knowledge about the industry, engineering part, and the ability to create design. We have a strong platform moving ahead from everything we did now in 2021 or 2020. We have then initiated actions for 2020. We have settled now a very firm strategic action plan, a five-plan that have included many areas. These are just a few examples on how we are then meeting the challenge we saw. What we now have done partly is that we are now using the broad portfolio of clients that we have in AFRY. We are then combining offers across AFRY domains. We are also diversifying customer base, which means that we are also addressing clients in the entrepreneurs, but also in other sectors now related to the digital environment that we are in the connected society.
We have initiated recruitments. Pricing optimization is something that we have worked with a lot. What Juuso said previously, the Center of Excellence. We have also initiated a plan now for not only increasing the profitability, but also ensuring growth and using the Center of Excellence as one of the tools. For all these actions, we have already started. It's check on all of these items for taking, I would say, the next step in 2021. We have already seen effects, which is good. For example, in Norway and in Sweden, where we both in project management, but also in our transportation business. Talking about Norway, in 2020, just to talk about one specific country, we had some challenges in Norway. You know that we have another role in the Norwegian market compared with many of our competitors.
That means that we were more exposed during the COVID period with being the project management execution. We were more in the execution phase. That is also a trend that has now changed. Now the market is starting up again. Also there we see positive effects from the agenda that we have set. We also have an active M&A agenda, that was also what both Jonas and Juuso talked about. Finally, the action also regarding the expansion of service offerings along our client asset lifecycle. This is something we are also now putting a lot of effort into to secure and use the, I would say, the possibilities with digitalization and also, based on what the client's needs are. Moving further into 2021, we have strong ambitions moving forward in the next year.
Since we have already started, and it check on a lot of items, we see that we will continue to execute and also de-deliver on the agenda for growth, both organically and also on the acquired, or growth. We are continuing with broadening the offer for our clients, and we also increase the share of the digital services. That is not anything we just say. This is something that we see as a demand now for or from the clients. I think that we are in the best spot ever for doing the digital journey together. We're also diversifying the customer base, as I said previously, working very closely with entrepreneurs, but also other actors within the connected society. How do we see upon the market moving ahead? We know about the market in 2020.
It has been a challenging year in certain areas and more non-challenge in other. How do we see upon the market moving forward? Yeah, I think we have a strong market position in the infrastructure area, that means also that the strongest area for us, or the strongest segment moving ahead, is the transport infrastructure. Let's start with the real estate. I think that everybody's aware today that the real estate is in the spotlight for many angles. It's regarding sustainability, it's regarding governance, it's a lot about social aspects. Everything is now putting a lot of demands into these sectors. We can talk about the green focus, with the climate actions that needs to be taken within a building or around the buildings.
One other trend that we see is the increased e-commerce, which means that the logistics around the infrastructure in general, in a city, for example, is put on a high pressure and also transforming for multiple purpose reasons, the buildings that exist. Many opportunities. Coming back to what Marie and Jonas said regarding the European Green Deal, it has been singled out in the European Green Deal that renovations are key going forward. We can also see a trend shift between public to private, et cetera, public is increasing, and we can also see between residential and non-residential how that is moving a little bit. Nevertheless, renovations is key. Transport infra, holistic view on mobility, increased investments in rail, that is something that we see overall, that the rail born traffic will increase. The portion also between rails and road moving onwards is crucial.
Water is also an area where we see a lot of positive trends, not only due to that it has been high up on the political agenda from a pandemic point of view, but also climate and renovation, et cetera. Many possibilities, but the strongest segment is within transport infrastructure. We have a very clear agenda moving ahead with three major client segments and where the real estate part is to continue client value in the changing market. We have, I would say, continue to balance the project portfolio across the segments, but also across the life cycle. Also the new service areas like the energy and facility management that are key, and again, digitalization and sustainability. Moving over to transport infrastructure, diversify portfolio and customer base. Global selected offers. It comes back to what Jonas said earlier.
We are a decentralized organization. We are now starting to use in a more structured way our competencies also cross border. That means that we can use tunnel competence from one country into another, for example. The third is that we are strengthening the platform in our home markets and specific focus on the Nordic and Switzerland. Finally, the third segment, on our way forward is water. Water is essential for all development, and we have had that on the agenda for some time. I would like to stress the fact that this is more important than ever.
Here we will use the full AFRY broadness in the portfolio with the footprint in both industry, in buildings, in transport, and secure that we will use also the competence that we have in different countries, and also expand together with our fellow colleagues in the other divisions. Our journey ahead is quite clear with three priorities to become the top three in Nordics. The first priority is to win market shares in home markets. The second is expand our service offerings. The third, and maybe the most important, and where I probably should have started, but I would like to end with that. That is, of course, then our employees and all our skilled consultants, being an attractive employer and securing and ensuring diversity and also inclusive teams. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Malin, for well presented. We have talked about infrastructure. I want to introduce Robert Larsson, who will talk about interesting topics. I know that Robert will talk about what's going on in automotive, where we are repositioned, but also about our growth ambition is interesting segments like food and life science. Welcome on stage, Robert Larsson.
Thank you very much, Jonas. I hear that my microphone is working, so I'm really happy for that. I will provide you with some details. Let's make this one working first. I will provide you some details on what we see ahead of us in food and life science. There will also be a general update on what's going on in the division. First, to help you with some dimensions regarding the division and what we're doing, we ended 2019 with SEK 5.8 billion in net sales. About 30% of the business in 2019 was projects.
For us, it has been very important to try to increase this share of business because it helps us to climb the value chain and capture more value. The vast majority of our business is in Sweden, and from a Nordic perspective, the division has been growing in both Denmark and Norway, but it is still true that we are not present in Finland. What we do for clients can be categorized into three buckets. It's about developing our clients' future projects and services. We design, connect, and optimize manufacturing capabilities and assets, and we add digital services on top of our clients' solutions. When it comes to ambition, we see that we should be the Nordic leader with a global reach and the partner of choice. Now moving forward here.
With a bit shorter time perspective, 2020 has been much about responding to COVID-19, which has had a significant impact on our clients' business and of course, as well as on ours. With a little bit longer perspective, we can conclude that both automotive and manufacturing segments has been sluggish ever since mid-2019. We have announced that we have accelerated our repositioning within automotive segment. With a more strategic view, I would say there are also this shift in business mix, and there are two aspects on this one. The first one is that what used to be 30% of projects is now at 40%, which is a healthy increase. The other one is that the strong organic growth in food and life science the last two years has shifted the market mix for us in spreading out the bets, so to say.
You have read the quarterly report. You can see that our business in the second quarter was very slow, and there was somewhat of a recovery seen in Q3. Just like Jonas said before, automotive is still from a low level. A bit more looking into the markets. On this slide, you have the four major market segments on which we are operating. Currently, I would say that they are about roughly equal in size. I will come back to automotive and food and life science later on. Starting with manufacturing then. Despite all this turbulence throughout the year, we see that majority of these main drivers are intact. There is one change, and that is a bit connected with the quest for resilience and redundancy. Global supply chains are likely to become, let's say, not local, but at least regionalized.
In tech, defense, and civil protection, this segment is big time benefiting from the digitalization leap that we are all experiencing currently. This means that technologies like IoT, cloud, AI, and 5G, they have never been more relevant than now. A bit on automotive. It's quite clear that the market, the automotive OEMs, they are in rapid transformation, and it is happening really fast now. You certainly know that Tesla is currently the highest value car company in the world, but you may not know that NIO, a long-term AFRY client, very recently became number six on the list. With a sort of automotive time perspective, both of these ones can be considered to be startups.
Recently, both Volvo and Scania also made bold claims or bold statements about what position they want to achieve in the future, and also the requirements on the project portfolio they have to get there. To make it very simple, it is going to be all about software. Software that is enabling new services that will drive the revenues for the automotive OEMs going forward. The consequence of this is, of course, obviously, there is going to be a lot of demand for software, but there is also going to be, we believe, a market for outsourcing through managed services. The market remained global and technology-driven, and from a Swedish perspective, significant. Roughly 20% of the IT and engineering consulting market in Sweden. With this about the clients and their markets, what are we doing?
Yes, we are shifted our kind of wanted position, which means that we are moving our center of gravity. I would say that there are three dimensions to keep in mind here. The first one is that we want to leverage design and R&D or engineering. This means that we will be involved earlier on in the vehicle programs from the clients. We shift from hardware to software, we shift from on-site services to projects. I believe the illustration to the left will help you to understand how we see this happening. This is well in line with the directions chosen by our clients, and the change in service models is supported by agreements with them. It is fair to claim that clients are becoming more and more ready for the digitalization, but they are also becoming more mature.
A few recent examples of what this looks like. Hitachi or ABB, as well as Alfa Laval, they are taking advantage of new technology to help their production or operational efficiency, flexibility as well as quality. A significant client within logistics, they want to add digitalization services on top of their current project portfolio. Buildings is really interesting. The fourth picture from the left, it's what happens when you combine experts in buildings with experts in digitalization. They come up with an app that is helping reducing the climate footprint, of course, based on AI. It's not only managing all these building utility systems in the building, it is also helping all the residents to make smart choices about what is the best going forward. Clearly, there are also some concerns. The ever-increasing connectivity puts focus on cybersecurity. Moving into food and life science then.
Food and life science is not at all new in AFRY. What is new, however, is the opportunities that has been created by the progress made during the last years. The market itself is driven by the increasing and also aging population on the planet. Maybe even more important is the increased wealth, which means that there is more money to be spent. The market has demonstrated years of stable growth, we believe that there are good opportunities for using digitalization to cope with the ever-increasing demands for efficiency and quality. To be a bit more granular, the market can be divided into food, into pharma, and med tech. As always, each of them has its own set of specifics, as you can see. Especially within pharma and med tech, it is all about complying with regulations.
Fully understanding these regulations is a fundamental qualifier in order to be relevant for clients. To the right, you see health, which can be considered as an adjacency. It's formally not a part of the food and life science market itself, but it is clearly driven by the same market forces. We claim that we have a strong market presence to build our further expansion on. What does this look like? On the left on this slide, you see it's all about designing and installing complete production lines. The examples are from Oatly and from Vistin Pharma in Norway. It is about upgrading projects. There is the global diagnostic company who asked us to upgrade the future product range to make sure that they are IoT and cloud connected, as well as GDPR compliant. AFRY into the health segment now.
AFRY is leading the national Norway e-Health digitalization framework or program. With the ever-increasing complexity, there is a lot to be done within the field of hospitals, of course. This is kind of where our starting point, and we are present in all of these ones. Now, looking at the historic growth rates of these markets, we can conclude it's about 4%. The outlook going forward is kind of favorable also. Given the strong organic growth for AFRY during the last two years, we have achieved a position as either number one or number two within each of these segments. Despite the growth, we don't see that we would be limited by market shares by any means. It's still a very fragmented market.
Going forward, obviously, we will continue to grow organically, but there is certainly an opportunity to accelerate this growth to explore what could be considered as a full potential scenario. Trying to summarize all of this. We are really happy to conclude that we are digitally capable, and we also firmly believe that we are positioned for growth. I told about how we think this automotive repositioning. Clients are becoming more ready and also more mature when it comes to digitalization. Food and life science is ready for next level to become the largest sector in the division, or maybe even by far the largest sector in the division. This is building up to our ambition to be the Nordic leader with a global reach. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Robert. Well presented, related to our industry division, but also position in digital and also a very interesting segment in food and life science. That's Malin and Robert talking about these two areas. Now, we will talk basically about two big sectors for us. We will talk about the process industry and bioindustry, and we will talk about clean energy. We will have Nicholas Oksanen and Richard Pinnock. Before that, I want to have Roland Lorenz, Head of our Management Consulting business, that has created a unique position within AFRY, where we are a leader in strategic consulting for those two sectors to set a bit the scenes into clean energy and bioindustry. Roland, the stage is yours. It's all yours, Roland.
Thank you very much, Jonas. Indeed, the transitions in bioindustry and in the energy sector are providing secular growth opportunities for AFRY. With development strongly driven by the international sustainability agenda, including the European Green Deal and the Green Recovery. We, as AFRY, have a unique position since we are able to provide a one-stop shop in both sectors, covering services across management consulting, engineering, CapEx projects, operations, and digital solutions. Already today, we have an excellent starting point with more than 4,000 experts in Europe and globally, a combined revenue of more than SEK 3.8 billion after Q3 closing, delivering an EBIT margin contribution of approximately 10%. Let's have a closer look at the opportunities in these both sectors.
In bioindustry, we see a global shift with evolving legislation and changing consumer behavior driving demand for packaging and hygiene, resulting in the need for new production capacity and even if graphic paper demand is declining due to digital media. Can you please go to the next slide? Growing sustainability awareness is calling for continuous development of new value-added solutions in sustainable packaging and in advanced bioproducts such as biomaterials, biochemicals, and biofuels, just to name a few of them. Resource scarcity is increasing the pressure to fully utilize raw material and waste streams, which calls for reuse, recycling, and a circular economy approach supported by digital solutions throughout the value chain. On the next slide, we are showing what we mean when we talk about bioindustry, from the forest and the raw material along the different value chains to the various end products.
Overall, we see a growing bioindustry with an annual growth rate of 2.3%, resulting in impressive number of SEK 8,000 billion business by 2030. Especially in packaging and hygiene, we are faced with a steady demand increase of SEK 1,000 billion by 2030. The growing biofuels and biochemical markets are also providing sizable short and mid-term opportunities for AFRY. All of this requires continued investments in new-build capacity, replacement, and into conversion. When we go to the energy sector, and when we look at it closely, then we see a huge transformation towards clean energy, and therefore, we are really faced with an ever so interesting sector that is going through significant changes due to the shift we are seeing from fossil fuel generation to renewable energy and other clean technologies.
The graph on the left side, when you go to the next slide, shows what needs to be done to bring global emissions to required level for sustainable development. To make it all happen, significant investments will also be needed into the underlying energy infrastructure. This is not just a Nordic or European challenge. Decarbonization of the energy sector, combined with increasing global electricity demand coming from other sectors like mobility and industry, will present a huge global challenge, which calls for sustainable solutions. On the next slide, you see that the graph on the left, where you can see that this rapid expansion of renewables required alongside a steady decline in fossil capacity.
To achieve these emission targets and to reduce climate change, we are looking at a required investment into renewable energy of 8,000 GW by 2040, which is equal to the investment of 400 large offshore wind parks every year. For AFRY and our core markets in energy in the Nordics, in Europe, in Middle East, and in Asia, we are looking at significant demand for investments. Only in Europe, we are talking about grid infrastructure investments of SEK 4,200 billion by 2030. In addition to that, to the renewables and the grid infrastructure, we see other clean technologies presenting significant growth opportunities.
For example, in biomass, in hydro, in nuclear, in carbon capture and storage, and in hydrogen. On the next slide, you will see that AFRY Management Consulting complements AFRY's unique position in bioindustry and in clean energy, allowing us to take a holistic view of the bioindustry and clean energy transitions. With a team of more than 450 sector experts around the world, we are in a position to provide a distinguished offering for decision-makers in these two sectors along forward-looking market analysis, strategic advice, operational excellence, and transaction support. Management consulting allows us at AFRY to stay connected with the leading companies and get involved in important development at early stages, which creates sizable opportunities for AFRY, for our clients, and of course, for the progress towards a more sustainable society.
That's where we are keen to grow Management Consulting Division further to become a leading advisor for the transition in these two sectors. With these words, back to you, Jonas.
Thank you so much, Roland. Well presented. I think we have set an interesting base now for talk a bit more deeper about what we are doing in the sectors bioindustry and also clean energy. Thank you so much, Roland. I will introduce Nicholas Oksanen, who will then talk a bit about our position and what we are doing in process industry, but specifically in bioindustry. Hi, Niko. I leave it to you. The stage is yours, Niko.
Thank you very much, Jonas, and welcome all to the bioindustries, a very exciting world because of the fact that the trends are supporting the bioindustries and also our clients are changing their business towards bio. Excellent opportunities. What are we? Process Industries division has a turnover of SEK 3 billion, and the EBITDA margin with over 10% is stable. Our operations are global with 3,500 experts, which are located mainly in the Nordics. Next, please. Our segments cover bioindustry, including pulp and paper, biofuels, biochemicals, and other advanced bioproducts. In these segments, we have a strong number one position globally. In non-petroleum chemicals, we are positioned number three globally, and in mining, we have number eight position with a strong growth target. Next, please. Our unique service offering covers the entire client value chain and life cycle.
We have a strong office space in Sweden, Finland, Brazil, but we serve our clients globally. Next, please. The bioindustry transition brings all our segments closer to each other, as clients in different segments are moving towards bio-based business. Our strong knowledge in our bio-based business brings advantages in new growth areas as we have a strong technology knowhow and understanding of the entire value chain of the client's business. To grow in this bioindustry, we want to strengthen our position globally in pulp and paper, but we also want to strengthen our competence and position in advanced bioproducts, biofuels, and biochemicals. Expand offering in industrial digitalization and sustainability services to meet clients' targets in safety, Green Deal, and efficiency. We aim to stabilize our business through diversification in different sectors and services. Next, please.
When we look our financial position, we have a continued good growth in core markets, and our major projects implementation continue as planned. Currency effects had a significant impact in year to date, coming mainly from Brazil. With the same currencies, the organic growth year to date amounted to 5.3%. When we look our profitability, it's on a stable level. However, it is impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic with longer decision-making processes for the new projects. The year 2020, we expect to be stable. Next, please. When we look our market potential, I must say that we have great opportunities to grow because of the fact that, of course, in pulp and paper, the market growth is 2.3%, and our market share is 40%.
When we look our growth, it's based on market growth but also on growth in wood products, packaging, hygiene, and advanced bioproducts. When we look at these non-petroleum chemicals markets, that's growing 5% annually, and the market size is 3.5x bigger than pulp and paper market. When we take into account that we have a market share of 11%, huge growth opportunities exist. When we even look further in mining and metals, the market share is 4%, and the market size is 3x bigger than chemicals. That's clear that this brings us huge opportunities, and we will expand our business from Nordics to other regions. Next slide, please.
The key items for our profitable growth are, we will grow in this bioindustry, in the chemicals, the non-petroleum side, and also the mining and metals in selected regions, and also organically and by defined M&As. We will strengthen the client interface through our key account management, including all AFRY services. We will move up in the value chain and leverage the knowledge base through our smart solutions, meaning strengthen our digitalization, the environmental services, and also the health and safety services, develop our new services, and also innovate through our clients together through the research and development. Of course, the organization efficiency will be strengthened with engaged and motivated people and attractive brand. Stability is very important in our business. That will be increased through diversification in segments and also in both the CapEx and OpEx projects.
The stable OpEx business through our local offices close to our clients bring stability, but also supports our CapEx business. Our smart solutions support the move up in the value chain and leverage our excellent knowledge base. Next slide, please. For the profitable growth, we will grow in our core segments. Stability will come through our smart diversification, and the margin improvement will increase through value by delivering smart solutions and utilizing offshore excellence centers. As Marie Trogstam said, we want to highlight also our sustainability commitment, helping our clients to reach the European Green Deal targets. This means that we are committed to provide sustainable solutions to reduce pulp industry water use with more than 20% to meet our clients' sustainability targets. Why this commitment? Among our clients, water use is a key performance parameter and continuously monitored.
Most clients have water reduction as their sustainability target. Through our key segments and experience, our strong process technology knowhow, and our value chain understanding, we can reach the ambitious target together with our clients. That's all from the bioindustry, and as said, so we are looking forward to grow and take the opportunities which are there on the market. Thank you very much, all. Back to you, Jonas.
Thank you so much, Niko. Well presented, it's amazing to see the opportunities we have, and of course, our position in the bioindustry and process industry is a result of the combined ÅF and Pöyry. Well presented, Niko. We have talked about infrastructure, we have talked about the industry and food and life science. We talked now process industry, bioindustry. We have one more speaker from the divisions, and that's Richard Pinnock, who is sitting in Switzerland, in Zurich, and he's eager to present our position and thinking around clean energy. Richard, the stage is yours.
Thank you very much, Jonas. Greetings to everybody who has tuned in. I have the exciting time to talk about the clean energy drive and some very key decisions that we've made and how we're going to grow further. If I can start with the first slide, please, and talk just a little bit about how does the energy business today look. We are number four globally, and we are well-positioned in each of the specific focus markets that we are operating. We really operate in four main segments, and that is our biggest segment, if you just look at our sales in the first three quarters of this year, is our renewables and thermal section. Here also, I just want to tie back, and when I talk here, think about what Roland presented in terms of the opportunities that we have.
You will see in all the sectors, we have huge opportunities to grow. It's not the market that is going to restrict us in growing. It is our own ability on how we can take advantage of the opportunities that are there, which I will come to in a minute. What's also important is that we are global, and we are operating in more than 32 countries. The other important point to remember is we are 100% project-based. Of the 100% of project-based business, 80% of that is in fixed lump sum contracts where we're delivering the services to the client. The management of this is very, very important for us. We are well-positioned overall globally. We are well-positioned within our various segments. How are we doing?
If we go to the next slide, we've been talking quite a lot about the repositioning actions. Last Capital Markets Day, we talked about that in terms of what we've been doing and the decisions that we have taken specifically in terms of those actions, be it the divestments, be it the management in terms of driving the business in a different direction. I have to say, I'm very proud of all the 1,800 people within our business today in terms of our journey into the target corridor of 8%-10%. I think that's clearly indicated in the last few years in terms of what our journey has been. We're currently operating now in that corridor, and of course, we have done this at the sacrifice of the top-line growth. This has not been on our agenda this year.
Of course, we went into COVID. We've had to deal with that, all my colleagues, and Jonas has been talking about that, and I think that we've learned quite a lot in terms of what this is. It has had its effect on us in delay in startup of many projects, but also in our business, particularly in the hydro side, really the stop of borders, the closing of borders that have prevented our experts from traveling. However, despite all of that, we really have solid pipelines going forward, which is really exciting for us. If we go to the next slide, just very quickly here, just want to tick a few boxes. We believe that the repositioning activities that we have done now is complete. We've also done a lot of focus.
Juuso talked a lot about that in terms of looking at the organization and really trying to become lean in terms of what we are doing, which, of course, has helped us, and we've had tremendous permanent savings that we have activated already this year, and the last part of that will come into next year. Again, here, we've taken advantage, and although COVID had its difficulties, it also had a lot of opportunities. Being able to work now in a flexible way has really taught us a lot, and this, of course, is going to be something that we will take into the future. Then, of course, also on our people side here, just one particular aspect is we spent a lot of time in terms of developing and training our project managers.
In the fixed lump sum project, it is so important that we keep control of all of those. Focusing in terms of that training has been really important for us. We then look at the next slide, here, I think, just to give you the real extent of the challenge that is facing us. If you look at this picture, all I want you to look at is that let's say above the 1.5 degree line, which Marie has talked a lot about, up to the dotted line of 3.5, which is the current pathway that we're on in terms of global warming. What has to happen for the industry is that all the non-CO2 or clean energy, nuclear, hydro, renewables, has to really go into that dark patch in the middle of the graphic.
That's the challenge that we have if we are to meet the 1.5 degree. This is exciting for us because it creates a lot of opportunity for us. Of course, we need to act faster than what we're acting if we're going to continue to move towards more cleaner energy overall. If we go to the next slide, just keeping that in mind, there are many opportunities for us, which is exciting. Solar and onshore and offshore wind is increasing dramatically if you go back to the curves that Roland talked about. Bioenergy, waste-to-energy is something that is really a huge requirement, and Malin touched on that as well in terms of urbanization. With this intermittency, pump storage schemes are really starting to grow, and we're seeing a large development in terms of that.
Of course, connecting everything together and bringing clean energies over long distances to areas where it's not so easy to have clean energies, we see that HVDC interconnection schemes are going to be playing a large role. Of course, lastly, there is a lot of new technologies that we've got to keep our eye on. A lot of opportunities are out there for us. Of course, what's exciting is how well-positioned we in AFRY are to take opportunity. In the next slide, what we've tried to show you here is looking at the business position, the business case for AFRY versus the sustainability and where the different, let's say, technologies and opportunities are lying.
You can clearly see that where we are focusing at the moment is in the top right-hand, and there's lots of opportunities, which has a strong business case for us. There are some in the developing side that, of course, is a strong sustainability picture, but maybe not so strong at the moment in terms of the new technologies, in terms of the business case. What really sticks out here is in the bottom right-hand corner is new-build coal. Clearly, although it's a strong business case, and we've seen that, from a sustainability point of view, and specifically the AFRY commitment, it is just really not what we should be focusing on. In the next slide, as Marie has already stated, we have now taken the decision that as of next year, we will be exiting any new-build coal.
We will continue, of course, to support our clients who are in their own transition journey. Our focus really is going to be helping them in terms of their own carbon offset investment programs. There's a number of those that we want to get involved in to support them through that process. Of course, going into the future, if we look at the next slide, really for me, this is really exciting for the team, is we really now that we've got the platform strong, we really now want to start accelerating our growth. Here we want to be not number four, but number three. It's a tough target by 2023 to move up to the number three position globally.
How we want to do that is we need to become number one in a couple of niches, and the ones that we have chosen, which if you go back to what Roland showed you, there is tremendous opportunity. We want to be number one in offshore wind. We want to be number one in pumped storage schemes and HVDC connections. Of course, we want to continue to accelerate our digitalization program, because in the curve that Jonas showed you earlier, there is huge opportunity within the energy sector. What we of course want to then do is with becoming number one, if we go to the next slide, is the real strategic intent, is we want to be able to take our European leadership position to accelerate the energy transition in the developing economies. This is going to be absolutely key for us.
If we don't, in the next slide, if we continue on the current pace, what we are going to see is Mr. Guterres up to his knees in water. We're going to have growth with wet feet. This is important, how we can drive this. In summary, what we want to achieve now is accelerating our profitable growth. We're in the corridor, we want to get to the top of that corridor, we want to do that within clean energy. We want to position ourselves. We're already there in many areas, we've got to take that next position. This is going to be done not only organically, in certain niches, it's going to be done through strategic acquisitions.
As we have said, we want to exit coal, and of course, at the bottom line, we want to strive to accelerate the energy transition in the developing economies. Jonas, thanks very much, and I hand back to you.
Thank you so much, Richard. Well presented also from you. Thank you from Zurich. With that from Richard, we have actually come to the summarizing part of this presentation. We have heard myself in the introduction, Juuso Pajunen, we heard Marie Trogstam talk about sustainability, then Malin, Robert, Roland, Nicholas, and Richard about how we are seeing the segments moving forward. I will just take a few minutes to try to summarize this. A lot of things have been said. We will go over to Q&As before we close at 3:30. We have today then presented our next growth journey that we call our Take-off strategy, which actually is the take-off of AFRY's, which we created last year. We were a bit interrupted on the ongoing pandemic.
We have mitigated that now. Now we are also ready to take off, of course, looking into next year. There are five distinct areas. First, as we have talked about how we continue to drive our position in our core markets. That's of course, basically the base we have. We have five clear countries where we can scale. We are looking on organic growth. We want to attract the best. We will use our brand. We will also now re-accelerate our M&A agenda, also looking on strategic M&A platforms. Secondly, as you heard a lot about over the last presentations, how we can now focus even more on distinct segments where we see transforming trends. We have talked about infrastructure. It's a wide segment, and we are well-positioned.
Robert talked about food and life science as one promising, but actually with a digital platform we have, for example, in Industrial & Digital Solutions, we have a great base. We are repositioning in automotive, and we are creating a stronger base in industry and digital. bioindustry, of course, extremely interesting with the trends ongoing. Finally, Richard talk about all the changes that needs to happen in the energy segment, and we want to be a leader in that. I would say if I compare to a few years back, it's very clear around those four segment, and on top of that, our position in our core countries. Digital, it is absolutely clear, and you have seen that our divisions are delivering a lot of digital services, products, and even solutions today, and we will continue with that.
Robert had a long list of digital solutions in our division, and we will continue to drive that. On top of that, we will also now look jointly for AFRY, how can we scale that further? We will use a unit called Digital X to scale it, and we have set a clear revenue target for AFRY as a whole. We will invest in digitalization, we want to create new business model in digitalization, and we want to fully leverage our current digital base to our clients. That's a clear target for us. We believe for the coming years that, of course, digitalization will continue to increase dramatically. Fourth, sustainability. Also here, we are taking a position across the company in sustainability. Marie presented it very well.
Finally, Juuso presented also our financial situation, but also how we have been working quite hard since the joining forces with Pöyry, how to drive scalable, efficient, lean operations in our backend new ERP system, but also how we can use our current footprint for offshore sourcing. These are the five parts that combines the next growth journey for AFRY. Last slide. Sorry, wrong button. Last slide before we move over to Q&As. Zooming out even more. What have we done? Well, we have presented today our growth strategy. Of course, it's a lot of parts in it, but that summarizes with these five parts that I talked about before. Our financial target is unchanged, and Juuso made it very clear we are going back to growth. It's been a troublesome 2020, but we have mitigated a lot.
We have strengthened our balance sheet. We are committed to reach that 10% EBITDA that we have set up, also to go back to our growth target, 10/10/2.5. We have also communicated today a growth target on our digital revenue. We have a target to triple our current digital revenue, and that should be more than 20% of group revenue in five years from now. Finally, we have taken out SEK 218 million in 2019 as an effect of joining forces with Pöyry. That was the cost synergies in relation to the deal. We communicated that 2020, we will look on SEK 120 million. Today, Juuso presented that as of today, we are above SEK 150 million as sustainable cost savings. We will overshoot that target of SEK 120 million. We have commitment in the area of sustainability.
We have talked about the Science Based Targets initiatives, and we have also announced that as of beginning of next year, 1st of January, we are exiting coal new build CapEx projects. This is just, I would say, the super summary of the things that you have heard today. By that, we will end the presentation part of this two and a half hour, and we will use the last roughly 15 minutes for any Q&As that you will have. I will hand over to Cathrine Sandegren, who will handle that. I will be prepared, together with all my colleagues, to answer any questions that you might have. Please, Cathrine, do we have any questions?
Yes. Thank you so much, Jonas. We will now open up for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please use the raise your hand function in Teams. Our first question is from Erik Paulsson in Nordea, please go ahead.
Oh, can you hear me?
Yes, loud and clear, Erik.
Great. I had a question regarding those synergies. If we go back a bit to the Capital Markets Day in 2019, you talked about synergies of above SEK 180 million. If we use this benchmark, how does the current yearly run rate synergies look like? Is it so that we should take those SEK 218 for 2019 plus those SEK 150 for this year so far?
To make it very clear, I will ask Juuso. I don't want to get into the Juuso area. Juuso, how do you see that? How do we see that?
Hi, Erik. It is crystal clear that you need to add them. We delivered 218 for the integration synergies in 2019. Now we are on top of that one, delivering north of SEK 150 million . At the same time, when you are adding those ones up, you need to remember that as said, we have now established a bit of new baseline, we are not talking about the same world we were talking pre-COVID. All of that north of SEK 150 million is sustainable and will come annually, basically. At the same time, if you recall the SEK 120 million communicated in February 2020, we said that we are at the same time planning to invest roughly SEK 60 million or SEK 50 million-SEK 70 million, like we wrote it at that point of time, into digital innovations.
Now due to COVID, we have pushed those maybe a bit forward. I would like to say that what Jonas a lso raised about our ambitions in the digital. We still have some investments to be taken on those parts. Like always, there are lots of pluses. There are also some minuses in this game.
Clearly, Juuso that the SEK 218 needs to be plus the SEK 150. That's how we see the cost savings.
Yes. No, exactly.
Of course, update and we have. Sorry, when we.
In total, SEK 368, right?
Yes.
Update you when we close our quarter for them, when we look on the full year.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Erik.
Thank you so much. Our next question is from Dan Johansson, SEB. Please go ahead.
Hi, Dan.
Hi, Jonas. Thank you for taking my questions. I have three questions this time. First one on the progress on revenue synergies and potential cross-sales in Finland, Sweden. Would it not make sense to make a bigger push for geographical expansion in the Industrial & Digital Solutions business, which is still a very local Swedish business, and given the strong ties into Finnish industrial customers that you gain now with Pöyry?
Yeah. I will leave it to Robert, but I think you're making a point, which I think also Robert did. We see food and life science, and I will say, Robert, true to say that that is for us, it's more and more becoming an interesting international niche offering. How would you formulate it, Robert?
I hope you can hear me.
Yep.
I think, just like you say, Jonas, of course, we see that we have strong offerings and I would say favorable client testimonies also. They seem to be happy with what we do for them. I think it becomes a top priority for us, this global reach to go into that one in food and life science. Having this said, obviously, with already strong presence that AFRY has in Finland, bolt-on growth would be attractive, but I think it is about the right opportunity at the right time.
Truly said, we have to also acknowledge that we saw a decline in automotive even in 2019 that was accelerated during 2020. What I also feel with the portfolio that Robert has with digital, we have a good base in defense. We have also the automotive, but we also have food and life science. For sure, we will push for growth.
That's one question, Dan. Do you have one more or two more?
Two more even. I'll fire away. Another question on M&A. Is it fair to assume that this growth avenues you have highlighted during this capital market day within infrastructure, clean energy, food and life science, will they be prioritized for bolt-ons, or is it your plan to grow these parts organically and then aim for acquisitions in other parts of the business?
No, you're correct. Actually, when you look on those four segments, and that's why we have been so clear, and I think that's where AFRY have become now very clear that 70% is around those four. Obviously, there are other areas we talked about digital. For sure, when we hit one of these segments, and we also take and strengthen our market position, that's where the M&As are becoming even more attractive. For sure, that's a prioritization for us. To our divisions, and even decentralized, we are driving now a ramp up on bolt-ons as well as we are looking on some potentially interesting strategic platforms. You're correct that we are prioritizing those segments where we think that we can take a position also higher up in the client's value chain.
Okay, interesting. Thank you. One final question, if I may. On the Digital X initiative, I know it is early days, but where do you expect this revenue to come from, this 20% of group revenue? Will it be broad-based revenue contribution across all your segments, or will it mainly be in certain parts, such as perhaps Industrial & Digital Solutions?
Of course, Robert, and in industry and digital, and Robert highlighted we are quite advanced. We have a fantastic base of competence, and many of the segments where we are operating in, they are quite advanced. That we will continue, and I think Robert made it very clear we want to scale that. At the same time, in infrastructure, bioindustry, energy, it's not as advanced. What we want to do now is to use our total scale in AFRY to scale also in those segments where we have not been scaling so much, also where the clients are in early days. We want to use learnings and platforms that we have developed in segments that can be reused, and we also looked a lot into recurring revenue.
We will measure the overall AFRY, and I want to make it very clear that the Digital X is an enabler for our divisions, and the joint revenue will come from AFRY as a total. We will be very specific over the coming years to follow up, measure, and incentivize digital revenue.
Thank you so much, Dan.
Thank you, Dan.
Our next question is from.
Thank you.
Johan Sundén from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Hi, Johan.
Hi, Jonas, and thank you for a good presentation.
Thank you.
A few questions from my side as well. The first one is for Malin, actually, in the Infrastructure segment. She touched upon this portfolio review to prepare for future growth. It would be very helpful if she could go into more details and describe what that review was about and what the outcome has been and so on. I'll start there.
I will give her a few minutes to give a bit more fruit into that.
Thank you for the question. Yes, as I said earlier, we have, as one of the key things that we have been driving, reviewed also portfolios. Of course, I don't like surprises. It's always good to have control over your project portfolio in general. We have also communicated what we have done, for example, in our architect business in Norway with Tegn_3, now is GPA, and we have also communicated in a quarterly report what we did in the building unit in Denmark. We have constantly worked through our projects. I think that's what it's all about. Very clear.
Thank you, Malin. I know that you have a few one-to-ones, so probably some deep dives into that, but it is like Malin said, we have actually gone through all the units, but also the project portfolio, and that has affected our top line a bit. I think now we are focusing a lot on getting back to growth, moving into the next year.
Good. Another question regarding this Digital X initiative. If digital revenue should represent about 20% of revenue in 2025, what do you see would be the margin effects of this different business mix and so on?
I truly believe that the digital offering we have, which is integrated in our segments. I guess you understand that you can't take infrastructure plus bioindustry plus, and then you add the digital, because actually winning those segments, we need to become more digital. We believe that by introducing also recurring revenue models, it should be a positive effect on the margin down the road. It will also be a growth driver because we will also look on the client's total value chain. I think I said that we will look from the first phases actually with strategic consulting or management consulting in bioindustry and energy, for example, all the way to the end of the projects, going into maintenance, service, et cetera.
Right now we are jointly together the divisions and also the Digital X, assessing our position, what kind of competencies and what solutions will we scale and ramp up. Truly, we want it to be an enabler for growth. On top of that, it should end of the day have a positive impact on our margin.
Interesting.
Sorry. It will be an enabler for all of us to reach those 10% that we are so committed to go for as Juuso presented.
Good. One last question, I think this will be for Juuso, just regarding these cost savings, and this north of SEK 150 million. How much of that has been realized during 2020, and what should we expect to come going forward?
Thanks. Basically, all of that SEK 150 north of that one has already been realized. Everything that we add up in there will be on top of that one. I am not comfortable on saying what is to be expected because we are still in the middle of the global turmoil, and we are not yet exiting from there. For me, it would be very important to have better visibility on baseline where we are standing before I would say where we are going to. All of that SEK 150 million is already basically impacting our bottom line because basically as you see, we have been saving quite a lot of money in Q2 and Q3 via both temporary and permanent measures.
Before taking a firm standing where our final ambition on this topic lies, I would need to have a bit more concrete baseline for the future than what we have within the current turmoil.
Yeah. Just to add on, of course, it's a delicate matter because what Juuso said, both quarter two and quarter three, we had to maneuver with a lot of short-term savings in the quarter. Based on that, we are also now seeing what of those savings will remain sustainable. Of course, as Juuso said, what is the baseline? It's fair to say that also support from the pandemic and the fact that we are losing the top line, we have taken more actions to create sustainable cost savings and also create that lean platform. All working well, that will be an enabler moving into next year when we start to get top line back because we have lost some volumes in automotive, and so on.
For next year, of course, getting back to growth and also as Juuso said, having that clear framework that we do not intend to have a cost growth at the same as the top line, but having a leverage into 2021.
Perfect. That was all from me. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much, Johan. We have two more persons that would like to ask questions. Please go ahead, Johan Dahl, Danske Bank.
Hi, Johan.
Yes, good afternoon. Hi, thank you so much for interesting presentation. Just a couple of quick questions. Firstly, on some of the repositionings that are going on, I think it was clear on the energy side that we're done with that repositioning. We heard from infrastructure, some integration type of cleanup going on and automotive obviously. When do you think we'll actually have established a sort of a baseline, and to what extent will it be a headwind to growth looking into 2021, these repositionings? I mean, we're soon there, so if you could just help me get my arms around that, I'd be grateful.
Yeah. A short answer from my side, Johan, is that I would say that we now are pretty done with the repositioning. Of course, there are plus/minuses, and as you know, we have some comparable quarters where still last year was high. I would say that we are very close to done on the repositioning, and then there are some plus/minus adjustment, and that's why we today talk so much about growth. That we see that what we had to do in automotive and what we had planned to do in energy, and Malin then cleaned up a bit in infrastructure. I would say that's done.
Okay. Thank you very much. Secondly, just on group risk. I guess an obvious way, especially in your project export, will be just to add a little bit of risk in your assignments to actually achieve that growth. How do you think about that, looking from a group perspective?
We have done a significant step in risk monitoring, Johan, and you might also know that when we joined forces with Pöyry, we had a few outstanding risks that is actually settled. Now with a new code of conduct and the whole compliance, and I would say governance framework, that also our head of legal, Susan Gustafsson, and we jointly have worked with, where we also have a very clear bid review that is also escalated depending on size and risks. We have a, I would say, quite different, much more structured way of monitoring risks before we are moving into new assignments. We are not increasing the risk appetite. I would say opposite.
With that process and review we have, I would say that we have a less risk profile now than a few years back when we did not have that structured way of monitoring projects that we were going into.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Johan.
Thank you so much. Erik Elander.
Okay. Erik will be the last one then, I guess.
Yes. From Handelsbanken Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi, Erik.
Hello, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the presentation. You just touched briefly on ramping up organic growth now going forward. Can you go into a little bit more detail of what does this mean in terms of what you do? Also, when do you expect organic growth to actually show up in the numbers? Thirdly, related to the same thing, what is actually your organic growth goal in the coming years?
Yeah, thank you for that, and I probably will have Juuso also supporting me. It is clear, Erik, and I know that we have presented that during the quarters, that in quarter two, when we had this, I would say for AFRY, dramatic decline on the top line, very much driven from automotive that we had a dramatic shift in quarter two that remained quarter three. We had also some headwind in the infrastructure in the private real estate. Malin talked a bit about the portfolio. As I presented, we took a lot of actions to protect our balance sheet and profitability. For sure, we were taking a lot of cost, and we became a bit more cautious in hiring, you could say. Where we are now, also going back to the question from Johan, do you think that you are done?
We feel now that we have plateaued. By that, we are now in a decentralized structure. You know, incentivizing, driving to go to growth, organic growth, to start to hire, to start to be offensive on the projects to start to scale up. That's basically how we have reboosting our model of going a bit more offensive, hiring, and drive organic growth, especially in our five core countries. That's one question, I think. You had one more?
Yeah, that was actually related to organic growth as well. You have a 10% growth every year, or that's the target at least. How much of that is actually organic growth? I guess you have a target for how many people you want to hire every year or increase prices and stuff like that. Can you talk a little bit about the split between organic growth acquired?
Well, I can say to you that the year before we joined forces with Pöyry, we were on 10% growth. Half at that time was 5% organic growth, and half came through a lot of bolt-on acquisitions. I still think that's the way we view it, that we are targeting roughly half from organic growth, half from bolt-on acquisitions. Now the question, of course, is that this year we are taking quite a big hit on the top line. We are seeing quarter two and quarter three. Moving into 2021, we are starting, and Juuso also said that, from a different base. I think our view is still that roughly half organic and through those acquisitions, where also the balance sheet now are well-balanced, and we can push for.
Also during these two quarters, when we saw the COVID effects going down, and we did not really know how the pandemic will hit, we were, of course, also a bit more cautious on adding on bolt-ons. I would say, Erik, still roughly half-half.
All right. That's very clear. I have a question also for Malin regarding.
Finally, Erik.
Infrastructure. Yes. I have asked this so many times, I feel like a boring robot or something. To me, still, it's 70% public sector for your infrastructure division. Most of this is in the Nordic region, which is a great region in terms of being able to spend money on projects because the public sector has a very good economy, relatively speaking at least. Organic growth is still declining and was minus 6% in Q2. Is this entirely related to the real estate problems that you have? The real estate should be a significant portion of the infrastructure, or why is this, in other words? Thanks.
Malin is here, and I know that you have a lot of one-to-one, and I think also you, Erik, so you will be able to. I think what Malin also said, and please, Malin, join me, is that clearly we have seen the real estate taking some hit, Erik, especially the private side. We also said that we have not performed according to the market on the transportation segment. After many years of growth, we had to take some actions into the portfolio and stabilize, and that affected, clearly, our top line, Erik. I don't think that we say that we put it all, which we said now, on the real estate. We have also not performed according to the market on the transportation due to our own work on stabilizing. What do you say, Malin?
Yeah, exactly, and I tried to explain that, and we can talk about it soon when we meet as well. I think it's clear that we took a hit in the real estate, as you're saying, but we also needed the consolidation within the infrastructure. Of course, and that's why I also pushed a little bit on the trends forward. This is where we see the largest possibilities for growth moving ahead. Definitely it has been a tough end of 2019 and 2020, and we can continue to talk about that.
I don't think, Erik, that you are like a robot repeating, because it's a valid question. I see it following from 2012 to 2018, we accelerated infrastructure with a lot of acquisitions, majority of them equity infrastructure. On top of that, we did the Pöyry acquisition that had a portfolio that had lower margin that we also had to integrate. That was a heavy work 2019, and now we had the pandemic. It's fair to say, Erik, we have not performed according to our expectations. The numbers are very clear. Maybe this is the last time you ask that. For sure now, moving forward, we feel that the base is settled.
Yes.
I guess you will have the chance to talk more with Malin in the one-to-ones. I will say we are not blaming only the real estate, Erik. We know that on the transportation side, due to different issues, we had a bit of a challenging in a couple of quarters. We feel that we are stabilizing. Is that answer enough, Erik?
That's a perfect answer, Jonas.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Erik. By that, we have answered those questions that you came up with now, and I would then like to thank all of you for spending this afternoon with us, 2020 has been and is still a challenging year because we are living in the middle of a pandemic. We are maneuvering in that, and we have taken actions, and we feel that we are stabilized, and we are very thrilled of the growth plan that we have presented today, where we have a strong commitment to go to the next phase of the growth for AFRY. Thank you so much for listening, and we are looking forward to talk to some of you on the one-to-one meetings. Otherwise, we see each other soon. Stay safe, take care of each other, and thank you so much.