GE's (GE) Ecomagination: "Ahead of Schedule"

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GE's (GE) Ecomagination: "Ahead of Schedule"

Written by Miranda Marquit

Tuesday, 20 May 2008 12:21

GE continues to green up its image -- by greening up its practices.

Recently, the Forbes/Wolfe Emerging Tech Report released something interesting: One of the best "buys" in the category of emerging technology is General Electric (GE). And a lot of the credit for this goes to GE's "Ecomagination" campaign to green up its image. But the great thing about GE is that it is also greening up its practices, and doing its best to be transparent about it.

While Big Oil companies (BP -- BP -- comes to mind) greenwash their images with a variety of advertising campaigns, GE did one better. BloggingStocks reports on why Forbes/Wolfe report thinks that GE is succeeding where BP is failing:

Green' has become transparent at GE. The missing ingredient to BP's green appeal, it seems, was some element of independent accountability. In 2005, when General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt launched GE's own brand of green initiative, ecomagination, he hired New York consultant firm GreenOrder to keep score.

People, especially environmentally friendly investors, like to see efforts at transparency. And by getting a third party in there, GE is "proving" that it has changed its ways from the polluting company it was years ago.

The new role as a leader in clean tech may not have saved GE from disappointing quarterly profits so far this year (GE blames losses from its financial sector businesses for the problem), but perhaps that means that now is a good time to buy -- while it's down a bit. After all, GE is a venerable company with a solid foundation. And it also appears to be looking towards the future.

Disclosure: GE is one of the companies I hold in a mutual fund in my Roth IRA. I am thinking of increasing my investment in GE.

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