Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the presentation of the Dätwyler Annual Results 2022 conference call and live webcast. I'm Sasha, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for question at any time by pressing star one on your telephone. Webcast viewers may submit their question or comments in writing via the relative field. For operator assistance, please press star zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Dirk Lambrecht, CEO, and Mr. Walter Scherz, CFO. Please go ahead, gentlemen.
Yeah, thank you very much. Yeah, welcome to our today's call. My name is Dirk Lambrecht, here with me is Walter Scherz, our CEO. We are glad that you are joining this call. Let us have a short look to our agenda. After our presentation from myself and Walter, we will be happy to answer any questions you may have at the end of our presentation process. I would like to start with a first look to what happens in the year 22. The reporting year was quite a challenging year, as everybody knows, with the war in Ukraine, COVID lockdowns in China, supply chain disruptions, and the negative impacts related to this. In this difficult environment, we achieved our revised objectives for 22, which we have communicated in May.
Our 10.4% organic revenue growth year performance reflects our strong market positions and the attractiveness of our addressed markets. Strategically, we are stronger placed than ever. We even realized that 21.4% revenue growth to CHF 1.15 billion. This includes the two acquired companies, QSR and Xinhui. Due to a strong and fast input cost increase, change in the product portfolio mix, and the delayed effect of implemented price increases, we had to accept a profitability decline during the year. While the absolute EBIT was only 7% lower at CHF 149 million, the EBIT margin declined to 13% after negative one-time effects.
As already communicated at a half year, we did some negative one-off effects due to the fair value adjustments in the acquisition balance sheets and the provisional closure of the Ukrainian subsidiary. Adjusting the EBIT for these both years and performances, like CHF 7.5 million, we ended at 13.6% EBIT margin. Without considering the one-time effects, costs for inventory and process optimization, which has another midsize midsize digit million rate. This is considered as a normal operating cost at Dätwyler and helps to increase acquisition with size going forward. I'm moving to the next slide here. Here you see our current organization, the two market-oriented business areas, Healthcare Solutions and Industrial Solutions. The acquired company, QSR, forms the business unit Connectors since May 2022. Our market units are supported by three group functions.
You can see that in the graph. Technology, innovation, finance and shared services, and sustainability and operational excellence. Our long-term customer relationship are built on the superior customer value we can deliver based on our three core competencies, which is solution design, material expertise, and operational excellence. With these combined competencies, we create cutting-edge solutions that enable our partners to turn the challenges of today into the achievements of tomorrow. Dätwyler is now a truly focused specialist of system-critical elastomer components for attractive markets since the recent transformation. I would like to highlight that our group functions have built a strong synergy base for all the markets we serve. Examples here for that is the shared R&D and core competencies in solution design, material expertise and operational excellence.
That is our common production and ICT system and processes, and which is quite important as well, is our joint procurement of raw materials and production equipment. Of course, all the other important functions such as finance and HR, which also provide services to both business areas. I will now move on to the business update on our two business areas, starting here with Healthcare Solutions. We merged the two prior business units, Pharma and Medical, to optimize our organization and to better serve our customers. We still serve both markets, but with an integrated and therefore leaner organization in the future. This business area offers high quality system critical elastomer components for containers, syringes, and delivery systems for injectable drugs. Our Healthcare business area increased its revenue to CHF 520.3 million in 2022.
Adjusted for currency effects and acquisitions, this equates to a 13% organic growth. The market demand deriving from COVID vaccine components declined as expected, with an accelerating trend towards the end of the year. We were able to pass on the significantly increased cost of input factors to our customers over the course of the reporting year. The delayed impact of the price increases and the unfavorable development of the product mix resulted in a lower EBIT margin of 20.4%. However, at CHF 106.3 million, the absolute EBIT was slightly higher than in previous year. The pie chart shows that we were able to accelerate our revenue growth outside of Europe. Here we have summarized some important 2022 highlights on this slide.
This will continue to strengthen our competitiveness and support our future growth in the healthcare business. Dätwyler gained direct access to the fast-growing Chinese healthcare market in the first half of the year by acquiring the strategically important company, Yantai Xinhui Packing. The integration work is on schedule despite the pandemic in China. Dätwyler was already able to substantially increase its revenue in China, thanks to Xinhui's customer contacts and sales organization. Dätwyler successfully started its operation as a second plant in its already existing site in India in 2022. This capacity expansion is an important basis for the profitable revenue growth that the company is targeting in the coming years. Dätwyler will be able to continue to optimize its cost structure by transferring products from European plants to India. I will now switch to the business area, Industrial Solutions. Let's look at the business area, Industrial Solutions.
Here we offer system-critical elastomer components for demanding applications in the Mobility, Connectors, Food & Beverage, and General Industry markets. QSR contributed revenue of some CHF 113 million during the 8 months, has led to a significant reduction of our European dependency and a revenue proportion increase in the Americas and in Asia. The EBIT decreased to CHF 42.9 million due to the significantly higher input costs, inventory adjustments, and a delayed price increase impact. This amounts to a 6.7% EBIT margin. This figure includes negative one-off effects coming from fair value adjustments in the acquired balance sheets and impairments on assets due to the temporary closure of the Ukrainian subsidiary totaling some CHF 7.5 million. Adjusted for these one-off effects, the EBIT margin ended 7.8%.
Industrial Solutions experienced a strong second half of the year. Demand from the automotive industry and EBIT margin recovered in the fourth quarter. The Industrial Solutions business area increased its revenue by 30.2% to CHF 636.1 million. Adjusted for negative currency effects and the first-time consolidation of QSR revenue, this equates to a 7.5% organic growth. While the three business units, Connectors, General Industry, and Food & Beverage, reported double-digit growth rates, the Mobility business unit was able to maintain its reported revenue level despite the COVID restrictions in China and the declining vehicle production in the important German sales market. Adjusted for the negative currency effect, mainly caused by the Euro, Mobility achieved an organic revenue growth in the low single-digit % range.
On this slide, we have summarized some 2022 highlights to support future growth in the business area solutions. Through the strategic acquisition of QSR in 2022, Dätwyler became a leading global supplier of system-critical seals for electrical connectors for a wide range of industries. The integration process is with the following great achievements going according to the plan. The Business Unit Mobility has been winning cross-selling projects, measures to increase efficiency in line with Dätwyler Production System. We have a production cell for sample products that's existing Germany production site and Karlsbad-Ittersbach plant, and we will start a mass production of QSR components in Europe in the future. QSR mold making and compound development as competence for all Dätwyler sites in America. I think that is also quite important to understand.
However, on the positive side, we are having as well the flip side of the coin. We have as well some topics where we're behind our original plan, which is reflected in the margin development, which I would like to bring to your attention. We had, during the last months, some unexpected one-time costs to ramp up the American, especially, and the Mexican facilities, according to our post-merger integration plan. Therefore, the relocation of further product lines from the US to our Mexican plant, we decided to do that only if we have the Mexican plant as it should be. That means, to the level what is to be expected from a Dätwyler production footprint.
That we believe that will give us a higher payback in the long run, therefore we decided to move this more into the direction of the year 23. The Mobility Business Unit is for years working successfully on the transformation to electric mobility. Various new technologies and materials are opening attractive new application opportunities in the car of the future. A new global business development team and an expanded global sales engineer network are acquiring new customers and projects. The chair of projects focusing on applications and electric vehicles is continuously increasing, meanwhile, it's taking 50% of order intakes, which would give a good indication for the future. With that, I would like to hand over to our Chief Financial Officer, Walter Scherz, who will give you some further financial figures.
Walter, please, the stage is yours.
Thank you, Dirk. Hello, everybody. A warm welcome from my side as well. Thank you for your interest in Dätwyler. I have the pleasure, as Dirk said, to present Dätwyler's 2022 annual financial results. Let me begin with the revenue development in 2022. Dätwyler generated CHF 1,150.6 million turnover in the reporting year, which is the column on the right. To compare versus last year, we excluded the turnover of the divested online distributor, Reichelt. This results, that's what you see in the third column, in a CHF 947.6 million turnover of the continuing operations in 2021. Compared with this amount, Dätwyler increased revenue by 21.4%. What does this growth include?
As you can see, Dätwyler generated a significant 10.4% organic revenue growth. The business area, Healthcare Solutions, organically grew by 13%, while Industrial Solutions achieved a 7.5% organic revenue growth. Approximately 1/3 of this 10.4% growth comes from price increases. The 2 newly acquired companies, which are QSR and Xinhui, supported our revenue growth with CHF 127.9 million. This includes QSR for 8 months, since May, Xinhui for 10 months. This represents, as you can see, a 13.5% growth. The negative currency effect, which is mainly coming from a weaker euro and also RMB, and some intercompany eliminations amounted to -2.5%. The next graph here shows the EBIT development.
To be able to compare it with the same period last year, we again excluded Reichelt's COVID contribution of CHF 73.8 million in 2021. This resulted in a CHF 160.4 million EBIT of the continuing operations. This is again, the third column, actually our starting point if you look at the year 2022. The EBIT performance of the two business areas, adjusted for acquisition and currency effects, more or less offset each other in 2022. Healthcare's EBIT increased by CHF 7.3 million. Industrial Solutions decreased by CHF 8.2 million. Industrial Solutions includes Mobility and General Industry, obviously their EBIT change includes one-off negative effects deriving from the impairment of our Ukrainian subsidiary. The EBIT contribution from the two acquired companies, QSR and Xinhui, amounted to -CHF 1.5 million.
This includes one-off negative effects deriving from the fair value adjustments and also from integration activities that we did in 2022. The strong Swiss franc, again, mainly against the euro, reduced our profits, which is denominated in CHF, by 3.6% for the full year 2022. Overall, the EBIT came in at CHF 149.2 million in 2022 or 7% lower than in the previous year. Right now we have talked about the absolute operating profits and absolute revenues. How do these developments, what does that mean for our EBIT margin and the relative figures? For that, we go to the next slide, please. This graph depicts the EBIT margin development for that year, the group, and the two business areas for 2022 and the last three years.
After three years of margin improvements on group and healthcare level and stable margins at Industrial Solutions, we faced a margin decline in 2022. There are three main reasons for this development. The first reason is the price increase effect, which puts pressure on the margins in both business areas. The second is the temporary closure of the Ukrainian plant. The third reason is QSR's EBIT margin, which has so far been clearly below Dätwyler’ s expectations. Their adjusted EBIT margin for the eight months since the consolidation is in the mid single-digit % range. Based on the due diligence we did for QSR, we were aware that QSR has a large optimization potential in the production and logistics processes. Therefore, we used our year 2022 to better position the company for the long term.
This additional effort in the mid single million amount has largely been implemented. We have to say, the costs have turned out to be higher than we originally estimated. The implemented measures will lead to a continuous margin improvement towards the target value. Incoming orders, so the top line at the turnover, continue to be encouraging and are in the high single digit percentage range as we actually planned. If these margins are adjusted for the one-time negative effects of some CHF 7.5 million, it's actually the same as in the half year with the fair value adjustment and the Ukrainian impairment. The adjusted EBIT margin for the Industrial Solutions business amounts to 7.9%, and for the company as a whole, to 13.6%. That brings us to the overall picture of the income statement.
The income statement, as shown here on the slide, is a functional income statement. What that means is that the functions which we see here include personnel costs, OpEx, depreciation, et cetera. It consists of three columns due to the divestment of Reichelt last year. In this year, 2022, the continuing operations cover the company as a whole. As you can see, the COGS, or the cost of goods sold, increased more than a turnover. This is the result of higher input costs. We mentioned raw materials, we mentioned personnel, logistics, and the delayed effects of the implemented price increases and the higher depreciation. The reduction on gross margin level amounted to 3.9 percentage points.
Compared with the first half of the year, the gross margin has already improved again, and this is thanks to the implemented price increases, which we have mainly seen in the second half. This, in the end, led to an EBIT of CHF 149.2 million, or 13.0%. Net income stands at CHF 104.8 million. This corresponds to CHF 6.16 per bearer share. What is below the EBIT, you see on this slide. You see the development of the total net interest and finance expenses, as well as the weighted average tax rate compared to the two previous years. Net finance costs increased to CHF 12.3 million due to higher interest expenses from acquisition financing, as seen in the balance sheet, and higher foreign exchange losses for the non-hedged currencies.
We hedge the main currencies such as US dollar and euro, there are certain currencies in emerging markets which we don't hedge. Going forward, the interest expenses will reach an annualized double-digit amount. The group's weighted average income tax rate increased slightly from 21.7% to 22.1% due to an on average high result in high tax countries. The tax rate remained almost unchanged compared to the previous year. We continue to be in the communicated 22%-25% range for both reported tax rate and weighted tax rate. This leads us to the balance sheet. The acquisitions of QSR has led to significant changes in the balance sheet structure. This is well visible on the liability side. Nevertheless, let me start on the asset side.
The cash position decreased significantly, as you can see, on the top side of the asset side. We have used these funds to acquire QSR and Xinhui. Fixed assets, inventories, and trade receivables also increased. On one hand, this is due to the acquired companies. They brought net assets in. On the other hand, there were deliberate inventory increases to ensure smooth business operations. In order to ensure our ability to deliver in a difficult year from a supply chain perspective, we increased our raw material safety stocks, but partially also for finished goods. The increase in trade accounts receivables is, on one side, due to the last quarter in 2022 that show a strong top-line growth. On the other side, payment terms at the acquired companies are being adjusted to the Dätwyler standard.
The aging structure is actually decent, the collection processes at QSR and Xinhui are being strengthened as we speak. On the liability side, we achieved again higher compared to half year, a 31.1% equity ratio. It is still below the long term average over the last years, it's clearly on the rise again. The lower equity level is the result of a double effect. On one side we have the acquisitions increase the debt by roughly CHF 536 million compared to the end of 2021. At the same time, or on the other side, equity decreased by roughly CHF 544 million due to the direct goodwill offset. This approach has the major advantage that we do not capitalize any goodwill in the balance sheet.
The consequence of the QSR acquisition was that our net liquidity of CHF 129 million in the previous year turned into a net debt of CHF 596 million at year-end. This is actually the graph that you see here. Dätwyler s tarted repayment of over CHF 30 million already in the second half of 2022. This deleveraging will continue in 2023 with full speed. The external debt is structured as follows, and you see that on the right side of the screen. On one hand, we successfully placed CHF 240 million fixed rate bond in addition to the CHF 150 million bond that was already on the market. This new bond has a 2.1% interest rate and runs over for 5 years period.
We also obtained the syndicated bank loan that amounts to CHF 154 million in the meantime, and that's composed of two elements, a long-term element and a short-term element of CHF 11 million. A loan from the majority shareholder, which is PEMA Holding AG, also contributed to the financing of the QSR acquisition. Net leverage stood at 2.65 year-end 2022. As we have proven in the past, and have started in the second half of 2022 already, we have been continuously striving to reduce our debt going forward and to increase the equity ratio to over 40% again. I would like to give you some explanation about the cash flows in 2022. Here you see the condensed consolidated cash flow statement.
As you can clearly see, in this overview, the cash flows are influenced by the two acquisitions, which you show or which you see in the net cash used in investing activities, as well as the related debt increase. This you can see in the net cash inflow from financing activities. The operating cash flow has deteriorated by around CHF 65 million compared to the previous year. You see that on the top line. This is nearly entirely due to the increase in networking capital. We increased the safety stocks of our raw materials and finished products to ensure our ability to deliver to our customers. With regards to accounts receivable, we had a strong fourth quarter in terms of sales development. The cash flow used in investing activities was CHF 701.5 million.
Free cash flow, as we define it, in 2022, was therefore a cash outflow due to the QSR acquisition. The cash flow from financing activities meant an inflow of CHF 466.8 million, which were primarily the inflows from our banking partners and our majority shareholder. All of this led to a liquidity decrease of CHF 101.3 million, as you have already seen in the balance sheet. On this slide, I want to show you the development of the return on capital employed, ROCE. ROCE was 17.6% at the end of December 2022. Same as for the equity ratio, our ROCE also had a double effect or impact.
The average capital employed increased also due to acquisitions to CHF 848.4 million. That's again due to acquisition and past investments. The absolute EBIT decreased due to the higher input costs. As a result, the return on average capital employed fell to 17.6%. Our ambition is, of course, to return to previous levels, which were clearly above 20%. This graph depicts the development of our investments over the last six years. As you can see, we are coming out of two investment cycles, one around 2018, one during the Corona pandemic. In 2022, we invested a total of CHF 91.6 million in property, plant, and equipment, and CHF 10.2 million in intangible assets.
The ratio of investments versus turnover is lower, that's the red line, is lower than in 2021 and comparable to 2020. Our investments will continue to decrease to the depreciation and amortization levels for the years to come. The investments in previous years, investment cycles, allow for this lower level of investment, and scaling of existing production capacities is a top priority. Therefore, we do not see a need for CapEx above the depreciation level going forward. With that, I'm coming to the proposal of the board of directors for a cash dividend of 3 francs or 3 francs and 20 rappen per bearer share and some 64 rappen per registered share to the annual general meeting.
Please keep in mind that last year's reported net result, which you see here on the slide, was CHF 194 million, included an exceptional contribution from operations and the divestment of online distributor Reichelt in the amount of roughly CHF 70 million. With a total dividend of CHF 54.4 million and a payout ratio of 51.9%, that really maintains a balance between dividend payments and strengthening our balance sheets. Thanks a lot for your time, and with that, I would like to hand over to Dirk again.
Yeah. Walter, thank you very much. That was really a good overview about the financial situation. Well described. I like that. Now we would like to continue with the outlook, which is maybe one of the most important things, what will happen in the, in the year 2023 and the following years. Now we will start here. I would like to be aligned with the title of our presentation because I'm really convinced that Dätwyler is from the strategic position, better positioned than ever before. That is due to the activities what we have executed in the last years. Now we are a very focused company with a strong synergy base and a clear mission. We would like to materialize ideas for a safer, smarter, and more sustainable world.
Very important from the customer perspective too, we support our renowned customers to efficiently implement technological innovations from the idea to industrialization. The next slide, please. Maybe a big change happens when you're looking to our global presence. We have overall a very global presence with standardized plans, and we can serve our customers locally. By acquiring QSR and Xinhui, we further increased our market shares in Americas and in Asia. Our revenue will be distributed more equally across the three most important regions of the world, thanks to the expected new market growth. Next slide. I would like to give you an overview of our positions, the growth potential, and our strategic priorities for the five markets we serve.
You will always find on the top, let me say, some further information, that means about the Dätwyler market position, the market growth in the respective areas, and what are our priorities for the coming years. You will see always as well, the addressable market in which we are working. It's quite important to understand that it's a very important figure here that we are trying to be in markets which we can influence, that we will always be the number one or two in the respective market. Let me start here with our healthcare business. Sorry. Here we are one of the leading specialists in primary packaging for injectable drugs. We have invested in our technological expertise and our global presence over many years, which is now the base for future success. Allow me to spend here some more words.
First of all, the first line has the most modern production standard in our industry. Highest product quality with industry-leading purity, which is very important, especially, because we would like to increase our market share in biologic markets. We have a harmonized global manufacturing footprint with newly added capacities in India and now with our own production plant in China, thanks to our acquisition of Xinhui in 2022. We have as well further worked to expand our technical customer support and our sales teams in the different regions. What was quite very successful, we had some broader customer base during the pandemic due to the fact that we got a higher awareness in the market, as a main supplier, for biotech here, behind with Pfizer.
The primary packaging market for injectable drugs has high entry barriers, is low cyclical, and features several long-term growth drivers. The most important ones are the demographic change, the growing middle class in emerging markets, the increase in chronic diseases, and performance injection as preferred methods of drug delivery. Ongoing investment activities by different market players prove the attractiveness of this market. Dätwyler is well-positioned to take advantage of the encouraging growth forecast in the medium to high single-digit % rate. To do so, we have defined the three priorities: accelerate growth in the US market in the attractive biotech field, expand our engagement in new drug packaging development, and to pursue opportunities in far emerging markets with a clear focus on China. On the next slide, please. I will now switch to our second-largest business unit, that is Mobility.
Here we are specialized in system critical components for the automotive industry. We are well-placed to help our customers transition towards new mobility. Our strong market position is based on our co-engineering capabilities to our broad technology portfolio, newly developed materials, and advanced production standards. All four aspects are crucial for our participation in new vehicle applications, with the scope of expanding our addressable market over the time. The midterm growth prospect of the automotive market looks promising due to the expected recovery from the pandemic. Strategically, there are hurdles to overcome, but the journey has started in the right direction. In summary, we will address new vehicle application with an expanded portfolio and new technologies. We will exercise cost discipline and optimization in our traditional market niches, and we will aim to move into attractive adjacencies. A good example is our progress in the field of electro polymers.
I would like to move to Connectors. This slide covers a high-level summary of our newest business unit Connectors, which we have integrated the acquired QSR business. Through QSR, Dätwyler acquired a leading global supplier of system critical electrical connector seals, unique competencies in materials, engineering, tooling, and production, close relationships with the world's largest connector manufacturers, and a broad portfolio of complex seals and components. The part of the electrical connector market demanding seals amounts to some CHF 1.6 billion-1.7 billion and grows at a high single-digit % rate. Several megatrends such as electrification connectivity, Internet of Things, and Industry 4.0 offer long-term growth potential. To benefit above average from the promising growth potential, we would like to penetrate the existing markets to boost our sales in Europe through our strong Dätwyler sales and production network.
To leverage our cross-selling through Dätwyler's business units, Mobility and General Industry. Of course, that will open new market segments for us. With that, I would like as well come to General Industry. Our General Industry business unit is a strategic sealing partner working across multiple industries. Therefore, you will find under the market growth, due to the fact that we have a highly fragmented market, more the area of markets in which we believe that what growth rate we can achieve in this next one. That is not reflecting the GDP in such market, which, of course, is lower than what we are showing here. Through former acquisitions, we expanded and strengthened our original General Industry business several years ago. Our market position is based on co-engineering competence with strong material expertise, as in the other business units as well.
We have a global manufacturing capabilities and outstanding product quality and long-standing relationship with industry leaders. We focus on demanding application across industries with our system critical components. This allows for higher growth rates in the mid-single digit and in the mass market for standard components. Our priorities include enhance the product and capability proposition, digitalize commercial process to accelerate profitable business wins, broaden our market access and product portfolio, and increase number of top key accounts, and to further cross-selling projects together with Mobility and Connectors. With that, I would like to come to the last business unit. That a very important one for us, especially in the Chinese, in the Swiss market. Here we are looking to our Food & Beverage business.
Here we have proven that our core competencies can support renowned companies in the implementation of innovative systems from a prototype to a mass production of several billion parts per year. We have a unique market position with long-term close relationship with market leaders, industrialization power for high volume production, expertise of highly automated production processes, a long learning curve with continuous improvement and e-efficiency gains. Based on an independent research, we estimate the addressable market to be at some CHF 1.2 billion. Growth forecasts vary widely per world region. Thanks to the strong market position of our customers, we will continue to grow above the market average in the future. Our strategic priorities are as follows. We will foster relationships and growth with the existing customers.
We will expansion of our product and customer portfolio to maintain our innovation leadership and continuously increase effectiveness of our production processes. With that, I would like to come to the next slide. Here, you can see our midterm goals. We have not changed that, so that means the table is more or less in line with what we have presented in 21, and which will be our guiding for the next year. As explained, I'm really convinced that Dätwyler is strategically stronger position than ever before. We see opportunities for profitable growth in all the markets we serve. Therefore, our midterm goals are still valid. I'm very confident that Dätwyler will be able to reach this goal as soon as the environment normalizes.
In the near future, our focus will be on achieving organic growth by scaling our business model and production capacities and on strengthening our balance sheet, as Walter already has informed you in his presentation. Regarding the current year 23, we had a good start and performance of all business units is good. We see a solid demand and an encouraging order book. It is our clear goal to improve our business results, but the numerous geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties call for caution. That is one of the reasons why we are not coming with a detailed target for this year, independent on the actual situation of our order book. To achieve our goals and to drive our organization's success, we will continue to focus on our strategic priorities.
Besides the progress we have made to drive profitable growth, we have continuously advanced our other three strategic priorities like sustainability, agility, and digitalization. To further enhance our agile collaboration, we have launched a so-called network marketplace on our intranet. This initiative enables faster and more effective internal recruitment for positions and project teams. In the context of digitalization, we work on the SAP S/4HANA implementation at all our sites, and we made progress in the automation of production and business processes. We have also invested significantly in cybersecurity, including the training of our employees, and we want to use digital opportunities to efficiently foster customer relationships and acquire new business. Our performance in advancing sustainability is summarized on the next slide. As you may know, sustainability has always been a high priority at Dätwyler, even from the founders.
For example, we have been a member of the UN Global Compact since 2009, and we have published a sustainability report in accordance with the GRI guidelines since the same year. On this slide, you see a summary of our sustainability highlights for 2022. Due to the organic growth and the acquisitions of our absolute resource, the consumption obviously increased compared to the previous year. Thanks to the implemented measures, we managed to continue reducing CO₂ emissions, waste and volumes, and electrical consumption, food and water per revenue unit. In the two graphs on the left side, you see our CO₂ emissions and water consumption revenue unit declined for the 5th respective consecutive time already. Further sustainability key points include a strengthened sustainability focus with newly appointed chief sustainability officer and executive management.
45% reduction of absent days per FTE due to the work-related accidents from 31 to 0.17 per day. E-learning tool successfully established with 3,200 active learners in the second year and an eco-design check for new product developments to be launched in the next years and the progress in the sustainable materials development. Yeah. With that, I would like now to conclude my presentation with a short summarize of the most important elements of our investment proposition. We are focusing all our activities on system, critical elastomer components. Meanwhile, without compromise, we offer superior customer value based on our recognized core competencies. The next one is that we have leading positions in markets driven by megatrends. I mean, leading position is not only on the business area.
That means in all our products that we are bringing to the market, we are the number one or two. We are dedicated to talent development and sustainable growth, and we have a track record of strong performance and financial stability, and that is.
What we think will help us in the future to deliver what we are saying. With that, thank you for your attention. Now, Walter and myself are happy to answer any questions, if there are any questions. With that, let us have a look.
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Maybe I take the question that was coming from Mr. Ramstein from Zürcher Kantonalbank. He asked a question regarding the healthcare business. How much sales was achieved with Corona-related products in 2022, and what are our expectations for 2023?
Yeah. I think that is clear. We have CHF 50 million around the year 2022, and we believe that this will lead to a further drop in the year 2023 of around CHF 40 million, so that we finally will come out with a high single digit over in the next this year. When we are looking to the sales growth perspective for the healthcare business, yes, we believe that we will be able, as what we have seen already in the last year, to compensate this via a strong growth in the pharma market. That is what we will see.
There is also a question, and I don't know, Gary, whether you or I.
No, you can do that.
The expectation regarding the EBIT margin, right, given the product mix development?
There, yes, we already saw the product mix development in 2022 in healthcare, less Corona products. This will be accentuated in 23, as Dirk just mentioned.
We have that product mix shift. On the other side, we also have compensating effects that will actually also try and help to maintain the margins.
Yeah. I think that hopefully answered your question, Mr. Ramstein. Do we have other written questions? Does not seem to be the case. Maybe just open for the forum again. Are there questions in the call?
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Okay. Good. If there are no further questions, if it seems all is clear, We thank you for the joining our call, and we are looking forward to seeing you soon, and we wish you a nice day. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. Thanks for your interest in that. We either have a good afternoon.
Thank you. Goodbye.
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