Sunday, April 22nd was Earth Day. Time for companies to take stock of what can be done and to applaud what’s already being done Earth-wise…
This year’s Fortune 500 Ranking of America’s largest corporations has been published. What I focused on is the “Most Admired Companies of 2007.”
Fortune’s survey was conducted by the Hay Group, which polled over 3300 executives, directors and securities analysts to find out which companies they most admired. Apparently, two of the primary reasons given for this year’s winners: innovative, new ideas, being green and/or pushing green initiatives forward.
Drum roll, please: General Electric came in at #1, garnering Fortune’s coveted “most admired” billing… for being green. This is quite a departure for a company with a dubious environmental past, but shows what can be done when a corporate giant reorients its thinking, and its priorities.
GE’s “Ecomagination” campaign was cited for three reasons, and I quote:
* “Supercharging revenues. . .”
* “. . .while doubling its $700 million R&D budget to come up with solar-energy hybrid locomotives, lower-emission aircraft engines, more efficient lighting, and ever more sophisticated water-purification systems.”
* “GE has also managed to conserve energy corporately. The corporate behemoth “cut its own energy bills by about $70 million last year, partly by installing new lighting in more than 100 of its plants, and reduced its greenhouse-gas emissions by about 150,000 tons.”
While the top 20 picks include many notable companies, I’ve chosen to focus on GE for this blog post. If you wish to view the entire list, please go to Fortune’s Internet partner, CNNMoney, and see it here.
According to an article in DM News, back in July 2005, Mickey Khan writes: “Once criticized for its environmental record, GE plans to invest $1.5 billion yearly through 2010 in research on cleaner technologies. Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and improving energy efficiency are other goals. On the financial side, GE intends to double revenue from eco-friendly products and services from $10 billion last year to $20 billion in 2010. That’s where GE’s online efforts are central to communicating its vision and progress.”
These kinds of projected investments and revenues are hardly chump change. It makes us realize that Jeffrey Immelt and company are serious about this. It also signifies that companies, large and small, from the most established to start-ups, can all do things to conserve energy, save money and increase revenues in the bargain. What’s not to like about that?
Not only is GE putting environmentally friendly practices in place; the company is developing eco-friendly consumer and industrial products, as well. GE’s compact fluorescent light bulbs, featured in one of the company’s Ecomagination advertising spots for example, use 75% less power than regular bulbs. They last for years, and consumers are encouraged to switch over to save money and energy. That’s clearly a win-win proposition.
Kudos to GE. They’re setting a highly visible example–one that should have an impact–as one of the world’s largest companies. To read more about the company’s commitment to embracing and developing green technologies, check out their site.
Do you think this makes other companies follow suit in their own practices, as well as the products and services they offer? Can you think of other companies that should be cited, large, small or local to you, due to their eco-friendly practices? We’d like to hear from you. . .
Related posts:
- Companies that Go Green Face Advertising Challenges
- Green in Chicago
- Is Negative Optioning Still a Viable Marketing/Billing Tactic?
- UPS Pushes Paperless Billing, Sort Of
- Green News Channel Makes Online Splash
Tags: Earth_Day, Fortune, General_Electric, green_marketing, Most_Admired_Companies, Ted_Mininni
I read a headline that said these compact fluorescent bulbs everyone is so high on pose a disposal problem because of mercury that is in them. I want to assume the risk is marginal compared to the cost of energy… but I might be wrong. I’ve been buying these bulbs for awhile, so it’s something worth checking into.
Still, it makes me wonder if GE is really thinking ahead or is just doing what is popular and/or more cost effective. As you said, they cut their energy bills by $70 million. That’s just good business, whether it is green, purple, yellow, or red.
Of course they market it as a “green” initiative one way or the other, because as a large corporation that deals with the consumption of energy, they’re under the gun, but that doesn’t make it so.
Cam,
There are always questions about the reasons businesses choose to go green. Is it for the PR value, or because they truly want to make a difference? None of us can say for certain, but whatever steps they take to conserve energy, curtail waste or otherwise manufacture more eco-friendly products is a win-win.
As you stated, saving money on energy costs for any business is a sound policy; yet it seems to me that few manufacturers seemed to worry about this much in the past.
The press has stated that the new energy efficient lightbulbs may cause an environmental hazard due to mercury leaks. We’ll have to wait and see if this is true. I still think it’s encouraging to see signs that companies are making strides in operating in a more environmentally responsible manner, and that they are developing consumer and industrial products that are, too.
Ted:
Interesting post — it’s always great to peel back the layers of the onion a bit to understand how ‘most respected’ gets defined. Would it be incorrect to assume, based on the above, that GE was selected based on criteria solely designed to select GE?
Is their $1.5 billion a year R&D on green technolgy the right investment? Will customers buy a partially-hybrid locomotive if it costs more to operate?
“Green” is the new “e-”. I’m all for green investment if it works. All things being equal, it’s a good tie-breaker. But I can’t heat my home or domestic water with the fifteen separate 6′ by 3′ solar panels on my roof — they don’t put out enough heat. Hmm. The Prius that makes us all feel so good to drive has a far worse evironmental impact than our Hummer, as the battery has circled the globe twice and will be a massive headache to dispose of once the car goes to the junkyard.
All things being equal, ‘green’ is good. When ‘green’ comes up to par, ‘green’ will win big time. In the mean time, I suspect there is a lot of basic research that needs to be done.
I imagine making a wholesale switch from incandescent bulbs to fluorescent bulbs couldn’t be a simple task, if done incrementally, for a company the size of GE. It would depend on every single person remembering the company directive to replace what they had with the new type of bulb, whenever one went out.
I would loathe the idea of someone standing over my back second-guessing which bulb I bought. We don’t buy light bulbs because we want light bulbs. We buy them because we want to see the things we’re doing when it’s otherwise dark.
To make that kind of push, it would have to be all at once. There would have to be some up-front costs involved that probably weren’t figured into that $70 million figure. The fluorescent bulbs supposedly last longer, and they definitely expend less energy, so in the long run, it still turns out to be a good move. Especially since GE’s cost for the bulbs is less than retail.
Lewis also pointed out awhile back that GE developed a high-efficiency incandescent bulb. Not sure how it compares to these others in terms of life and energy consumption, but it might solve the mercury problem, if there really is one.
I know we’re all hung up on the green issue right now, but I think this reflects, more than anything, the increasing cost of energy. That cost is increasing for a number of reasons, but it certainly pays right now to consume more efficiently. That goes for businesses and consumers.
I don’t buy Al Gore’s version of the global warming scenario by a long shot, but I always try to conserve as much as I can. Waste just means I spend more than I must. As the cost of going green becomes more economical, more people will adopt it.
Thus, it behooves the people who are researching these technologies, if they truly want buy-in (regardless of the reason), they, too must make their version of energy less expensive than our current versions — preferably not by artificially driving up the costs of all other types of energy.
Stephen,
Your insights are always welcome and appreciated. To answer your first question: it’s obvious that corporate leaders were asked to rank their most admired companies with specific criteria. This would obviously lead to their citing the corporate giants they know best in the areas of innovation and becoming more environmentally conscious. And, as I’ve always said: green initiatives like the examples you raised aren’t all perfect. In fact, some have negatives as you point out. But I think the important thing here, is that business is working toward solutions. The process is important and will eventually yield the kinds of results we can all feel good about.
Cam, as usual, you hit another nail on the head. Your insights are excellent, also. Thanks for weighing in.