Interview

IMAGINATIVE
ENERGY?
GEs Drive to Accelerate Investments in Clean Energy and Energy
Efficiency Measures
Clean energy is in vogue as yet another oil crisis looms, but does it." says GE's Jeff Immelt in understated
it make enough money? One of the largest global corporations fashion. GE set out to doubling its invest-
ment in cleaner technologies, to the tune of
with a workforce of over 300,000 employees worldwide, General
$1.5 billion annually by 2010. It estimates
Electric, is convinced that's the case and is aiming to carry corpo- its revenues from environmentally prefer-
rate America to new horizons with what it calls 'ecomagination'. able products will also double to $20 billion
Ralph Kappler spoke to GE recently to find out more. a year from wind, solar, higher performance
fossil fuel based energy and cleaner trans-
portation technologies.

L
et's not get carried away here too
quickly, it is already over 127 years
since the founder of the General
Electric Company contemplated: "I never
perfected an invention that I did not think
about in terms of the service it might give to
others. I find out what the world needs,
then I proceed to invent". Thomas Edison
invented the electric light bulb, the first true
use for mass electricity. It was also the
Victorian age when Sir William Grove
designed the first hydrogen fuel cell. So in
this context is ecomagination really that
imaginative?
"Ecomagination is grounded in the core
elements of our business. It takes programs
and practices, like new product innovation
and environmental, health and safety and ele-
vates the focus and the commitment in ways
that will provide a greater quantifiable and
measurable benefit to our customers, employ-
ees and shareholders," says Katharine Brass,
ecomagination program manager, GE Energy.
In May this year General Electric (GE)
launched a breathtaking campaign to pro-
mote an initiative that entails accelerating
annual investments in cleaner energy tech-
nologies to $1.5 billion by 2010 and com-
miting the company to improving its own
energy efficiency 30 percent by 2012.
Ecomagination, says GE chairman and
CEO Jeffrey Immelt, aims to "focus our
unique energy, technology, manufacturing,
and infrastructure capabilities to develop
tomorrow's solutions such as solar energy,
hybrid locomotives, fuel cells, lower-emis-
sion aircraft engines, lighter and stronger
materials, efficient lighting, and water
purification technology."
Wind energy revenues to
exceed $2bn
"Since Edison's days of leading technologi-
cal discovery, GE's mission has remained
steadfast to not only meet the world's
changing needs, but to anticipate them",
says Robert Gleitz, General Manager of GE
Energy's wind segment. GE's Energy
Division expects 2005 revenues for wind
energy to exceed $2 billion. GE Energy has
commitments for 2,400 megawatts of new
wind capacity worldwide, including 1,650
megawatts in the U.S.
Today, the global environment is in
urgent need: skyrocketing demand for oil
and natural gas is expected to exhaust
known reserves by 2045; changes are emerg-
ing in the global climate; and lack of access
to clean water currently endangers more
than a billion people - a mounting crisis
where, by 2025, half the world will live in
water-stressed areas.
"We are going to solve tough customer
and global problems and make money doing
Going clean reaps
rewards
With record numbers of tormenting hurri-
canes pounding the Gulf coast this year, the
horrifying images of New Orleans flood vic-
tims and sky-high oil prices occupying the
public mind, sources of clean energy are
very much in fashion. The aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina has also focused minds
on the extent of global reliance on fossil
fuels, generating interest from both the pub-
lic and investors in the renewables sector.
What would have been regarded as a pre-
posterous notion in global media marketing
circles some years ago, has now turned into
a perfectly reasonable scenario. Last month
the prestigious American Business Media
Awards recognized GE as the Grand Prize
winner for its ecomagination campaign in
New York. A culture shift is under way.
GE, which also owns NBC and Universal
Pictures, is suddenly challenging global mar-
ket leaders in wind-turbine production, and
its ads are creating an alluring picture of a
variety of other clean technologies that the
corporate giant produces. However, next to
wind, solar, and hydrogen solutions these
technologies still include nuclear power and
so called 'cleaner coal'.
Wolfgang Tauchmann, the down to earth
director of the German wind cable

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 Interview
manufacturer Cornelia-Thies
Kabeltechnik is wasting no time on
dwelling about the overall energy
scenarios. His family owned busi-
ness secured a lucrative contract
from GE and supplies the global
giant with wind cables in Germany
and overseas markets. A clear indi-
cation that Ecomagination can also
mean business for internationally
oriented SMEs.
Recognition for GE's efforts in
the clean energy field continues. At
Euromoney's Annual Renewable
Energy Finance Forum (REFF),
GE found the spotlight that bit
brighter. During the forum's annu-
al awards ceremony a few weeks
ago, GE was announced as the win-
ner of the Clean Technology
Supplier award at the event held at
the London Royal Garden Hotel.
Robert Gleitz, General Manager
of GE Energy's wind business, was
humbled when the London news
reached him while he was serving
customers at the Husum wind
industry fair in Germany. "GE
Energy is absolutely delighted to
receive recognition for technologi-
cal advances from an industry driv-
en, international finance forum.
GE has a long standing history
of product innovation and ongoing
product development. ecomagina-
tion further demonstrates our
company-wide commitment to
create and enhance products and
services that help customers
improve their environmental and
operating performance." GE has
devised a strategy to secure a fair
share of what the International
Energy Agency (IEA) anticipates
to become a $16,000 billion
world-wide energy investment
market until 2030.
Critics hold their
fire...just
Most admired company or not, GE
has been in the Eco protestors
sights for years because of its
dumping of polychlorinated
biphenyl (PCBs) in the Hudson
50 reFOCUS November/December 2005
River in New York. Eco campaign-
ers and climate change advocates
pointed accusing fingers at GE's
environment record during the 80s
and 90s. Ironically, it was Jeff
Immelt's predecessor and the com-
pany's former CEO, Jack Welch,
who had dismissed the calls as "bad
science" and spent millions lobby-
ing against environmental
regulators.
The down to earth Sierra Club,
America's oldest, largest and most
influential grassroots environmen-
tal organization with more than
750,000 members, voiced concern
over a possible ecomagination
greenwash. "When you scratch
beneath the public relations sur-
face, I'm afraid they have unfin-
ished business in terms of environ-
mental protection," warned Chris
Ballantyn, director of the Sierra
Club Hudson River Program, refer-
ring to GE's stalling on cleaning up
potentially cancer causing PCBs
that leaked into the Hudson from
its factories. Frank O'Donnell,
president of Clean Air Watch, is
blunt about what he perceives as a
$90 million ecomagination PR
blitz: "You might call it 'extreme
makeover' or perhaps simply
'greenwash' ". However, a U.S.
Government ruling in 2002 has
slowly convinced the company to
change its stance and begin pro-
ducing tests and engineering
designs for clean up operations.
"Ecomagination is building on
past successes and recognizing that
any company that manufactures a
wide range of products has inher-
ent environmental challenges,
some of which are not obvious at
the time. Some examples of our
environmental efforts that contin-
ue within the ecomagination pro-
gram are our reduction in waste-
water discharges, improvements in
air emissions and reductions in
spills and releases.
Since 1996, each of these areas has
realized an improvement of more
than 60%. Our manufacturing
www.re-focus.net
facilities are currently ranked #1 in US
OSHA and Mexico VPP sites and we are
now a member of the Dow Jones
Sustainability Index," says Katharine Brass.
30 years after PCB chemicals GE discharged
in the Hudson River were banned as an envi-
ronmental pollutant, a deal was finally
reached with the Environmental Protection
Agency and Department of Justice to begin
removing contaminated sediment in a two
stage clean-up costing up to $750m. GE
agreed to start dredging parts of the Hudson
River in upstate New York.
The Hudson clean up shows that GE
means business with its green power cam-
paign. This deal not only coincided with the
ecomagination campaign launch, ecomagi-
nation simply wouldn't work without GE
wholeheartedly walking the talk.
Bold move
Ecomagination is a bold move even by GE
standards. It represents a strategic shift that
could catalyze competition among some of
the world's largest companies to accelerate the
emerging clean-tech economy. This invigorating
www.re-focus.net
effect will be all the greater for GE's reputa-
tion for carrying out its promises. GE is the
biggest but not the first company to perceive
a competitive advantage in sporting environ-
mental credentials. Lord Browne of BP
pledged to cut his oil company's emissions by
10 per cent from 1990 levels by 2010, and
announced in 2002 that it had achieved its
goal eight years early.
While Bush officials are still insisting that
federal action on climate change will hamper
industrial growth in the United States, cor-
porate leaders are recognizing that it's essen-
tial to their firms' economic survival.
General Electric, Ford Motor Company,
Duke Energy, Exelon, and JPMorgan Chase
are among a growing number of Fortune 500
companies that in recent months have voiced
support for a federal crackdown on carbon
dioxide emissions. But few Fortune 500
CEOs thus far see the opportunity as a
strategic path for their company.
Since GE's CEO is committed to ecomag-
ination it has a good chance of succeeding.
He made the announcement and is staking
his personal reputation on it. Rather than
proposing a vague agenda, GE announced an
initiative that has both a grand vision and
specific goals and timetables. If GE really
does want to make money out of clean tech-
nologies, something influential will probably
happen.
"The effect of the world's biggest compa-
ny taking a stance on green issues will be felt
in smaller organisations around the world",
says James Cameron, CEO of Climate
Change Capital, a boutique merchant bank.
"A million PowerPoint presentations will
now have a slide in them on GE's ecomagi-
nation," predicts Mr Cameron.
That really is good news. And the jury is
out there, or in Mr. Immelt's words the cus-
tomers, to cast the verdict with their pockets
on the visionary ecomagination business
drive. How much of GE's estimated 20%
industrial sales are finally generated through
environmentally preferable products such as
smart renewable technologies will in the end
decide whether ecomagination becomes a
very expensive greenwash, or in deed one of
the boldest business initiatives the world has
witnessed at the dawn of this century.
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