GE earns scorn at green conversion

GE earns scorn at green conversion

May 17--By Joe Lauria, The Business, London Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

The launch last week by General Electric (GE) of a campaign to become environmentally friendly has divided analysts, activists and investors who disagree over whether the programme is public relations hype, a serious business plan to keep the conglomerate competitive or both.

Details of the campaign, dubbed "Ecomagination" by GE publicists, were rolled out in advertisements in business newspapers, television commercials in the US, and in a big speech last Monday by Jeffery Immelt, GE's chief executive.

GE wants to double the company's research on green technologies by 2010 to $1.5bn (£795m, E1.2bn). It also wants to double sales of eco-friendly technologies to $20bn by 2010 by introducing 30 to 40 new products within the next two years like wind turbines, solar panels, coal-gasification power plants, water treatment facilities and more energy efficient lighting and appliances.

Immelt said GE is committed to cutting GE products' greenhouse gas emissions, mostly carbon dioxide, by 1 percent by 2012. He said if no changes were made GE's emissions would rise 40 percent in that time.

Immelt said GE is being forced to make such changes to their operations in countries where national legislatures have regulated reforms in line with the Kyoto protocols. He called Europe "the global regulatory superpower" on environmental policy and said the US should follow it.

That puts GE at odds with the Bush administration, which opposed Kyoto. But it also positions GE ahead of its American competitors at home if a future US administration accepts Kyoto.

Immelt pointed out that GE had become a leader in offshore wind turbines in Europe but similar projects have yet to be approved in the US.

Environmental activists and financial analysts are more sceptical. John Coequyt, energy policy specialist at Greenpeace, said it had become clear to GE internally that the politics of global warming is good business. Chris Ballantyn, director of the Hudson River programme for the Sierra Club, called the campaign an attempt to green over a dark image.

-----

To see more of The Business, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.thebusinessonline.com .

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com. GE,