About This Report
Citizenship at GE is more than a program or a set of good intentions—it is a full-time commitment to improve our social, governance, environmental and economic sustainability efforts around the world. Our Citizenship efforts are embedded in our core business operations, strategy and daily actions, through which we focus on improving our own sustainability and helping to solve some of the world’s toughest challenges.
We are committed to maintaining a culture of integrity, transparency, ethics and compliance. Operational excellence means managing our social and environmental performance— from our Board of Directors (BOD) to our entire organization. The BOD oversees the implementation of policies related to employees, customers, investors and other stakeholders. We apply the same performance culture, innovation and talent to our Citizenship goals as we do to any other business goals.
Each year, our approach to corporate citizenship progresses as we review and clarify the scope of GE’s material impacts. And each year, we publicly report on our progress in a way that is informed by our strategy and our broad engagement with stakeholders across GE businesses and the communities where we work. Our reporting model has also changed, from providing “point-in-time” data once annually to offering dynamic, regularly updated online content coupled with a yearly snapshot.
For this year’s online report, we have worked with our stakeholders to determine the optimum framework to illustrate GE’s broad Citizenship efforts. Based on that input, we have aligned our Citizenship content with the themes of social, environmental and economic impacts—or, what we call People, Planet and Economy. On this site, you will find a discussion of our Citizenship performance in each of these areas for the 2011 fiscal year, as well as regularly updated content and descriptions of relevant GE policies and programs.
In brief:
People
Focuses on GE’s customers, employees, communities and shareholders—both the significant value they bring to the Company and the support that GE provides in working with all of the above.
Planet
Reviews the scope and management of GE’s environmental footprint, with a particular focus on the critical environmental issues of water, energy and climate, as well as the management of other resources that GE uses to provide its products and services.
Economy
Highlights GE’s role in supporting a growing, increasingly urban world, in which effective corporate governance, proactive public policy and thoughtful corporate action are needed to help meet global challenges and to support continued development and prosperity.
Like any part of our business, Citizenship at GE has defined goals, strategies and metrics. We have strong operating mechanisms that monitor and analyze our impact and progress on people, planet and the economy. And whether providing strategic support to strengthen our customers’ businesses, offering strong safety infrastructure to protect our employees, or implementing projects to meet our energy and water-reduction goals, GE is playing a significant role in addressing the sustainability challenges the world faces.
We hope that this online report provides useful information about the shared sustainability challenges facing business and society today. We will continue to engage in these constructive discussions, just as we will continue to work toward contributing solutions for a thriving and sustainable world.