74 AMERICANWAY
OCTOBER 1 2007
turned it intoagrowth campaign.”
It wasn’t that he had an abiding love of
wide-open spaces. “Until 2004,” he added,
“Ihadnever campedoutside—never.”
The GE program calls for the company
to double its investment tomore than$1.5
billion in developing clean technologies by
2010; to increase sales of environmentally
friendly products to $20 billion by 2010;
and to reduce its greenhousegas emissions.
Immelt likes to say, “Tobeagreat company,
youalsohave tobeagood company.”
How does he convince investors that
green is green? So far, he has the goods to
prove it. GE’s sales from environmentally
friendly products such as wind turbines,
water-purification systems, and energy-
efficient appliancesdoubledduring thepast
two years, reaching$12billion.
“For125years,GEhasprofited fromsolv-
ing someof theworld’s toughest problems,”
he says. “This is good not just for society
— it’s good for GE investors. We can solve
tough global problems and make money
doing it. GE aims to be the partner of
choice for our customers around theworld,
whether homeowners, business leaders, or
government officials, by offering advanced
technology to improveefficiencyandreduce
pollution in cost-effectiveways.”
GEwas one of the foundingmembers of
the United States Climate Action Partner-
ship, a group of businesses and environ-
mental organizations that has calledon the
federal government toquicklyenact legisla-
tion that will require significant reductions
of greenhousegas emissions.
Immelt saw early what other business
leadersdidnot and started theGE ecomag-
ination campaign, says Eileen Claussen,
president of the PewCenter onGlobal Cli-
mate Change and Strategies for the Global
Environment and a former assistant secre-
tary of state for the Bureau of Oceans and
International Environmental andScientific
Affairs in theClinton administration. “This
was an exercise
in looking ahead
based on an assess-
ment that theworld
was going to deal
with the climate-
changeproblemand
carbon emissions,”
Claussen says. “He
took a look at the
technology portfo-
lio and decided he
would make that
a portfolio for a
carbon-constrained
world.”
Before announc-
ing GE’s entrance
into the market,
Immelt met with
shipCouncil. Claussen is impressedby Im-
melt’s involvement in the global-warming
issue. “Hepersonally spendsa lotof timeon
this issue,” she says. “What ismost interest-
ing is GE continues to make its numbers,
and the market loves them. And they love
them with this thrust that green is green,
which is Immelt. That’s really the way our
system shouldwork.”
MICHAELSHELLENBERGER
ECOBADBOY
MichaelShellenbergerandhiswritingpart-
ner, Ted Nordhaus, like to call themselves
the bad boys of environmentalism. For
years, they worked for environmental or-
ganizations, doing marketing, public rela-
tions, andpolling for them. Then, in2004,
the two turned on those groups, releasing
a bombshell, an essay titled “The Death of
Environmentalism.”
In the essay, they argued that there had
been a fundamental political realignment
that made the environmental movement
obsolete in its passion for regulation and
limits and in its failure to broadly define
environmental groups like Pew to ask how
the campaignwould be perceived and how
it shouldbe implemented. “I’mnot a fan of
greenwashing, so I said they’dbetternot say
anything if they can’t back it up,” Claussen
says. “We talkeda lot aboutwhatkindof in-
ternal emissions-reduction goal they could
have. It was not huge, but it had to be real,
and theyhad tobe sure they couldmeet it.”
What Immelt promised todowas to im-
prove GE’s energy efficiency by 30 percent
and cut greenhouse gas emissions by one
percent by 2012, even as the company is
projected togrow eight percent annually.
Much of that growth now comes from
environmentally friendly sources. One of
Ecomagination’s early success stories was
the GEnx jet engine, whichwill enable the
newBoeing 787 andAirbus A350 jetliners
to use 20 percent less fuel than the planes
they are replacing. GE’s revenue from re-
newable energy—wind, solar, andbiomass
— isprojected tobe$7billion in2007. Five
years ago, itwas$5million.
Immelt andGE are also part of the Pew
Center’s Business Environmental Leader-
“We need to reinvent ourselves
again, andwe need todo it around
economic competitiveness and
energy independence because those
aremuchmore central and higher
concerns for theAmericanpeople
[than the environment is].”
exclusivelywith amicrowave for a year,we’d save asmuch energy as the entire continent ofAfrica consumes during that same amount
