It took me a while to figure out what it was about GE Canada’s launch of its Ecomagination program yesterday at the Living Arts Centre that gave me that queasy feeling in my stomach.
After all, the program seems entirely laudable on the surface. It’s essentially an across-the-board greening of GE products.
The company that Thomas Edison founded is doubling its commitment to research and development worldwide on environmentally-friendly products. One project of 92 wind turbines in Ontario will power 25,000 average households and save 400,000 barrels of oil a day all by itself.
Everyone knows GE is into compact fluorescent bulbs big-time but I didn’t know it was the largest diversified company of its kind on the globe. It’s also in the forefront of reducing the heavy-duty pollution of aircraft engines and train locomotives, among many other things.
After we heard the sobering litany of challenges threatening our survival as a species (oil and gas run out in 40 years; the population will hit the sustainable limit of 9 billion by 2050), we heard the good news that saving the world has finally become profitable.
“Green is green,” GE International President Nani Beccalli said, meaning that green products now mean greenbacks in the pocket.
He also said that, “the most strategic imperative for our company is growth.” Since its customers will be facing stricter environmental controls as the world realizes that slowly suffocating in our own toxic stew is a really bad idea, GE’s priorities to get greener and to grow faster just happen to line up perfectly.
So, maybe things haven’t changed as much as you think in the corporate world. The motivation for this whole initiative obviously is primarily the shareholders’ interest. The positive environmental benefit is just a collateral gain.
Maybe motivation doesn’t really matter and we should just be happy that corporate giants of the size of GE have joined the green team.
It’s important to do the right thing, of course, but it’s really nice when we do it for the right reasons, too.