A Letter from Brackett Denniston & Bob Corcoran

Citizenship means business at GE.

Over the past 10 years, GE has sought to demonstrate and deepen the linkage between our role as a good corporate citizen and how we pursue opportunities to be a successful business.

The themes we have been exploring, by convening discussions between GE executives and stakeholders on issues such as conflict minerals (see page 18), resource scarcity, weak rule of law and a more volatile climate, have now moved from the margins to the mainstream.

Creating shared value and helping to solve global problems are becoming a core benchmark measure against which businesses are judged.

Our approach to citizenship also needs to continue to evolve to ensure that we meet our own ambitions and the expectations of our stakeholders.

In particular, we need to continue to ensure that social and environmental issues are fully integrated into the way we plan, build competencies, assess risks, manage performance and direct investments, in every GE business and in every country where we operate. This also means continuing to deepen the way we work with suppliers, joint-venture partners, customers, governments and communities to understand and respond to shared challenges.

Continuously improving the Company’s response to both global and local issues depends on listening and learning. Consulting with our Citizenship Advisory Panel is one way we seek to do this. Discussions with the panel about the future of our corporate citizenship approach have focused on three priorities: measuring the Company’s approach against the scale and urgency of global challenges, responding to issues material to each locality and sector where we operate, and ensuring that investors understand the link between GE’s strategy for contributing to sustainable development and creating shareowner value.

This report, and the accompanying country fact sheets, represents a snapshot of where we are in addressing these challenges.

As a business, GE is developing a more decentralized, faster and more local approach to its global business, building more integrated local teams (such as in India, where we are building “One GE” business—see page 22) and in many cases taking a “company to country” growth strategy of working directly with governments to meet local needs. Our approach to citizenship must also become more localized, and we will advance this through regional dialogues bringing together GE executives and stakeholders during 2011 and beyond.

Brackett B. Denniston III
Senior Vice President and General Counsel

Bob Corcoran
Vice President, Corporate Citizenship