Company Profile - General Electric (GE)
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With the launch of Ecomagination in 2005, GE vaulted itself to the forefront of Green business. Trying to bring bring green initiatives to all areas of their business, Ecomagination is founded on 4 basic principles:
1) Double Investment in clean R&D. This has included everything from developing energy sources to cut your carbon footprint, such as wind and geothermal energy, to more efficient transport to water treatment and purification.
2) Increase Revenues from Ecomagination Products. GE sells a wide array of Ecomagination certified products both to other businesses and to individuals to help them fight global warming. These range anywhere from plane engines to energy saving light bulbs.
3) Reduce Our Greenhouse Gas Emissions. GE uses the 1-30-30 initiative which refers to percentage reductions in total greenhouse gas emissions, percentage improvement in greenhouse gas emission intensity, and percentage improvement in energy efficiency all by 2012.
4) Keep the Public Informed. GE highlights their green credentials as often as possible in media, and has been prominent at numerous conferences on the subject.
To GE, Ecomagination has undoubtedly been a huge success. 2005 revenues of environmentally friendly products reached $10 billion, and they expect to beat their goal of $20 billion by 2010.
It can't be argued that GE is truly a leader in green technology. The one area for criticism would have to be their goal of a 1% reduction on total greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. Even with strong growth, that is not an impressive target for a company claiming to be a world leader in this area.
How does GE stack up?
Business Strategy: 5/5 - reducing the carbon footprint for themselves and customers is evident everyone at GE
Products & Services: 4/5 - although reducing the carbon emissions from their products, they do still produce some high emitters.
Leading By Example: 3/5 - could make better use of their own technology to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions further
Overall marks: 4/5 - certainly a leader, but not quite perfect!
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