GE DOES WELL DOING NEW ENERGY

GE Seeks Green By Going Green
Peter Gwynne, March 2010 (Industrial Research Institute via WaterWorld)

"…[Though] the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and some fossil fuel companies lobby hard to deny the effect of human activity on global warming, some high-technology firms are…embracing environmental attitudes as a source of new business enterprises. Prominent among those firms is General Electric…

"In 2005, GE launched what it called its "ecomagination initiative," which it intended to meet customers' demands for more energy-efficient products and, in the process, improve the company's bottom line. Since then, the company has brought more than 80 "ecomagination solutions"- both products and services-to market. Revenues from the ecomagination sector represented 9% of the company's total last year, and increased by 21% from 2008 to 2009."

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"GE hasn't adopted the approach simply because it feels it should do its bit for the environment…[It’s] a hard-edged business strategy…To GE…"eco" means economics plus ecology. Thus, the corporation bases the venture on the fundamental proposition that "green is green"-in other words, that the development of innovative solutions to environmental problems will inevitably produce profit for the company…[And it sees New Energy as the] next big emerging market…

"The approach has a natural fit with GE's corporate footprint, which covers a wide range of industries and locations. GE's businesses that have benefited from ecomagination's products and services so far include energy, transportation, consumer & industrial, oil & gas, water & process technologies, aviation, healthcare, enterprise solutions, and even GE Enterprise Services and GE Capital."

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"The venture has also provided strong assistance to the company's global growth. In December 2009, for example, General Electric China announced that ecomagination products in China produced revenues of $656 million in the first three quarters of 2009… a 50% increase over the similar period in 2008…

"…Each GE division is encouraged to come up with green products and…to develop its own plan for reducing its environmental footprint…[GE has doubled] the firm's investment in R&D on clean technologies over a period of four years, from $750 million in 2005 to more than $1.4 billion in 2008…[Work on new battery technologies, advances in wind energy, smart grid te3chnologies, “clean” coal and energy efficient lighting reresent] roughly one-third of the company's current overall investment in R&D…"