Second, volume growth. Even in the current challenging market conditions, we remain highly focused on increasing our ferrous and nonferrous volumes. Third, expansion of our products and services, to meet the increasing demand for recycled metals. We continue to focus on providing products and services that meet this demand, such as our green steel products and our 3PR services. And fourth, productivity initiatives that we undertake as part of our continuous improvement culture. In fiscal 2023, we achieved the full run rate of benefits from the productivity initiatives that we announced earlier in this fiscal year. For fiscal 2024, we have launched a new $30 million productivity improvement program. Before turning it over to Stefano, it’s worth noting that while the weaker environment that we are in today presents challenges, we have experienced cyclical downturns and volatility before and have demonstrated our ability to navigate effectively through these periods.
We have a strong track record of delivering positive through-the-cycle operating cash flows and have a flexible balance sheet. Equally as important, we benefit from an operating platform where the majority of our costs are variable and we have multiple levers available to us to manage through this period of slowing economic activity and tighter supply flows. These market conditions won’t last forever and we are well positioned to benefit from the expected increased demand for recycled metals associated with decarbonization and low-carbon technologies. So now, let me turn it over to Stefano.
Stefano Gaggini : Thank you, Tamara, and good morning. I’ll put a review of our consolidated results and provide an update on our ferrous sales and the market dynamics. Adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter was $49 million, or $44 per ferrous ton. Average ferrous and non-ferrous net selling prices were lower sequentially by 14% and 7% respectively. In addition to lower prices, metal spread compression was exacerbated by the further tightening of scrap flows since June which affected our ability to adjust scrap purchase prices to reflect the decline in selling prices in the quarter. Slower-than-expected scrap generation also led to a sequential decline of ferrous sales volumes of 4% and a loss of operating leverage. The lower price environment led to a detriment from average inventory accounting of $5 million or $5 per ferrous ton.
Finished steel sales volumes were 7% higher sequentially benefiting from seasonality which substantially offset the impact of lower finished steel net selling prices. Our fourth quarter results included the recognition of insurance recoveries of $41 million, representing final settlement with our insurers during the quarter for losses resulting from the fire at our steel mill in fiscal 2021 as well as recoveries related to the shredder outage at our Everett facility last year. As a reminder we experienced the financial impact from the operational disruptions associated with these events in the last couple of years including earlier in our fiscal 2023, we did not exclude the impact from our adjusted EBITDA and consistent with that approach we do not adjust out insurance recoveries when they are recognized in our income statement.
Finding ways to mitigate increases in operating costs resulting from inflation remains a priority. As Tamara mentioned, today we are announcing additional productivity initiatives for fiscal 2024 targeting benefits of $30 million on an annual basis. These initiatives are focused primarily on further production cost reductions, operating efficiencies, logistics, procurement savings, and yield improvements. We have already started implementing these measures which aim to not only mitigate inflationary pressure on operating costs, but also offset the loss of operating leverage due to the lower volumes we are seeing in the current environment. In the fourth quarter, we recognized non-cash impairment charges of $45 million, primarily related to goodwill associated with one of the company’s reporting units as part of the annual test required by the accounting standards.
