General Electric Company Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt announced ecomagination, a major new initiative to aggressively bring new environmental technologies to market that will help customers meet pressing environmental challenges.
GE, the world’s largest company by market value, plans to more than double its investment — to $1.5 billion by 2010 — in technologies that include cleaner coal-fired power plants, a diesel-and-electric hybrid locomotive and agricultural silicon that cuts the amount of water and pesticide used in spraying fields, the report said.
The conglomerate aims to achieve $20 billion in sales of environmentally cleaner products by 2010, or double the amount it currently has — a target that would comprise as much as 20 percent of its estimated industrial sales.
“Ecomagination is GE’s commitment to address challenges such as the need for cleaner, more efficient sources of energy, reduced emissions and abundant sources of clean water,” Immelt said. “And we plan to make money doing it. Increasingly for business, ‘green’ is green.
“Ecomagination is about the future,” Immelt said. “We will focus our unique energy, technology, manufacturing and infrastructure capabilities to develop tomorrow’s solutions such as solar energy, hybrid locomotives, fuel cells, lower-emission aircraft engines, lighter and stronger materials, efficient lighting and water purification technology.
“We will establish partnerships with our customers to tackle their most pressing environmental challenges and double our research spending to develop the products and services they need,” Immelt said. “And we will use these technologies to improve our own energy efficiency and environmental performance.”
Under ecomagination, GE will:
* Double investment in R&D. GE will invest $1.5 billion annually in research in cleaner technologies by 2010, up from $700 million in 2004.
* Introduce more ecomagination products each year. GE will double its revenues from products and services that provide significant and measurable environmental performance advantages to customers – from $10 billion in 2004 to at least $20 billion in 2010 with more aggressive targets thereafter. These products include renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar, technologies and materials that make energy production and consumption more efficient, cleaner and more efficient transportation technologies, and products and services that conserve or purify water.
* Reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improve its energy efficiency. In addition to helping customers meet their environmental goals, GE has committed to reduce its GHG emissions 1 percent by 2012 and the intensity of its GHG emissions 30 percent by 2008 (both compared to 2004). Based on the company’s projected growth, GE’s GHG emissions would have risen 40 percent by 2012 without further action.
* Keep the public informed. GE pledges to publicly report its progress in meeting these goals.
Jonathan Lash, president of the Washington-based World Resources Institute, said, “This is a hugely important step by one of the world’s most important companies. It is particularly encouraging that GE is focusing its research on cleaner technologies and making a serious, meaningful and accountable commitment to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Innovation and leadership are what is necessary to address climate change, and that is what we are seeing from GE.”
Immelt announced the program today in a series of events in Washington, D.C., including a speech at The George Washington University. Joining Immelt and Lash in making the announcement were executives from leading companies that are working with GE on ecomagination projects and technologies, including American Electric Power, Boeing, Canadian Pacific Railway, Cinergy, Delphi and Pardee Homes.
Loading...