Creating Sustainable Value

GE’s principles for being a good corporate citizen are simple: make money, make it ethically and make a difference. GE’s approach to citizenship is our business. It is through innovating in products and services to solve the world’s biggest challenges that we can make the most difference; by doing it ethically, we are able to earn our place in society.

GE’s business strategy for achieving sustainable growth and creating value for shareowners, customers and communities recognizes that we are in a world where natural resources are constrained. Fuel, water, food and raw materials are already in short supply for many, yet the needs and aspirations for more and better jobs and opportunities, goods and services will only keep growing. The number one role of business in contributing to society is to meet these needs. This will require innovation at an unprecedented scale and speed to reduce the cost (including the environmental cost) and improve the quality of the products and services that people need for a better life, and to make them accessible to more people.

It is not just natural resources that are in critically short supply. Communities, cities and countries need resilient infrastructure to prosper. This includes the hard infrastructure of roads and railways that get people to work and goods to market, and the networks that carry information and power. It also includes the soft infrastructure of schools and universities that educate, capital markets which direct investment where it is needed, rules which enable free trade, laws that enable ideas to be shared while intellectual property rights are protected, and sound institutions that prevent corruption and create the basis for collaboration. Developing the policies and institutions of tomorrow requires as much collaboration and innovation as developing the products of the future.

As the examples in our report demonstrate, it is by responding to these global challenges that we create value for customers and communities, and ultimately produce returns for our shareowners.