Word: immelt
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Jeff Immelt isn't your garden-variety environmental apostle. A math whiz who played football at Dartmouth, he's not apt to tramp about the wilderness or have Zen moments atop majestic mountain peaks. Immelt bestrides the summit of General Electric--a $152 billion conglomerate supplying everything from home appliances to jet engines to entertainment, via NBC Universal. When the GE CEO isn't globetrotting in his role as chief salesman, he unwinds with an activity that Earth Day types typically abhor: golf. "What gets me pumped is hitting a six-iron 160 yards on top of a hill...
...what also gets Immelt pumped is talking about the environment in a way no GE chief has before, certainly not his predecessor, "Neutron Jack" Welch, who ran the company with a brass-knuckles approach to the bottom line. Welch had a testy relationship with greens, notably over cleaning the Hudson River of PCBs, a toxic chemical GE dumped, legally, for decades before the practice was banned in 1977. Since Welch retired in 2001, however, Immelt has been remaking GE. He recently announced a restructuring, paring 11 operating divisions to six. He has pruned slow-growth businesses like insurance and loaded...
...Immelt responding to a guilty corporate conscience? Nope. He's seizing a blossoming opportunity: Green is where the green is. Eyeing the hot market for eco-friendly technologies like wind turbines, Immelt says he aims to double revenues in green products from $10 billion to $20 billion by 2010. He promises to improve GE's energy efficiency 30% and cut greenhouse-gas emissions 1% by 2012 as the company grows at a projected 8% average annual rate (emissions would rise 40% if left unchecked). GE will issue annual "citizenship" reports on its environmental progress. With a new ad campaign...
...course, with sometimes contradictory positions, and you could say Ford execs are just protecting investors, whose interests they are legally required to represent. No CEO wants to stand up at a shareholders' meeting and announce that going green hurt profits. "Guys in my job can't have hobbies," Immelt says, explaining that he's not greening GE to earn plaudits from environmentalists, eco-minded consumers or even young GE employees, who liked the idea according to internal focus groups. "You can't do things because you had a vision while you were in bed one night and someone whispered...
...Immelt and GE--whose size, stellar earnings record and legendary management practice make it one of the world's most influential companies--it's about cashing in on cleaning up the planet. Worldwide, the market for environmental goods and services hit $600 billion last year, according to Environmental Business News. Some segments, such as renewable-energy power systems, are expanding at double-digit rates in Europe and China. Immelt needs those high-growth businesses to offset mature sectors in GE's portfolio, which aren't growing much more than the economy. The potential for fuel-saving technologies and renewable energy...