GE Reports

GE’s ecomagination business initiative usually grabs headlines on GE Reports for the breakthrough, energy-efficient technologies at its core — everything from cleaner locomotives, to wind and solar power, to the GEnx jet engines being put through their paces in our new video series. But today the ecomagination team turns the spotlight on itself with the release of its annual report. It shows GE has surpassed its first ecomagination goal to reduce a key greenhouse gas measure — and is making progress against goals for revenue growth, and water and technology innovation.

All together now: As explained in the video above, GE’s ecomagination business initiative is all about making cleaner technology for customers while simultaneously reducing GE’s own carbon footprint in our own facilities.

In 2005 GE made a series of ecomagination commitments to be achieved sequentially in the years 2008, 2010 and 2012. The first commitment was to reduce our “operational greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity” 30 percent in 2008 — which essentially means calculating emissions against company revenue. Think of it this way: if GE is doing well and making more things, revenue goes up, and emissions would likely go up in a corresponding fashion. However, one of GE’s ecomagination goals is to reduce these emissions even as revenue increases.

GE surpassed this goal by reducing GHG intensity 41 percent. GE also has reduced its absolute GHG emissions 13 percent and improved its energy efficiency 37 percent since 2005, keeping it on track to meet its 2012 operational commitments in these areas.

The green mile: This Canadian Pacific Evolution locomotive is running with GE’s Trip Optimizer — an ecomagination technology that can minimize braking by automatically learning a train’s characteristics. The system calculates the most efficient way of running by considering such factors as train length, weight, grade, track conditions, weather and locomotive performance. During the trip, a sophisticated network of onboard computers and GPS systems updates the profile continuously; adjusting for changes so the train can reduce fuel.

With the release of the 2008 ecomagination annual report, GE also announced that it increased its portfolio of ecomagination products and services by one-third, to 80. The initiative originally began with 17 products in 2005.

GE also grew revenues of ecomagination offerings 21 percent, to $17 billion and increased its investment in the research and development of clean tech solutions 27 percent, to $1.4 billion. That’s up from $750 million in 2005, and is quickly approaching the $1.5 billion annual ecomagination R&D target by 2010.

“Leading by example is the essence of ecomagination,” said Steve Fludder, vice president and leader of ecomagination at GE. “If we are proposing that customers and enterprises around the world use GE solutions to reduce their emissions, then we should do the same.”

GE was able to achieve its first greenhouse gas commitment by migrating to less GHG-intensive fuels; utilizing GE’s own ecomagination technology such as solar panels, advanced lighting products and Jenbacher engines; improving the energy efficiency of its production operations; and integrating GHG as a facility management objective.

* Read the ecomaginition annual report
* Read GE’s announcement
* Learn about GE’s newest ecomagination locomotive
* Learn about GE’s smart grid efforts in Florida, Oklahoma and Houston
* Learn about our research into Smart Grid technologies
* Watch our recent video series about the GEnx engine
* Learn about GE’s internal efforts to reduce water use
* Watch a video about our hunt for energy savings at our Wisconsin plant