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2010 Citizenship Report

2010 Citizenship Report

About Citizenship

Overview of Challenges & Value

GE is an advanced technology, services and finance company taking on the world’s toughest challenges by finding ways to respond that create value. GE businesses depend on the infrastructure, skills and institutions of stable prosperous societies and healthy environments. To succeed as a global business, we therefore need to help build these societies, wherever we work—through the products and services we create, the way we work with employees, customers, suppliers and investors, the public policies we advocate and the philanthropic partnerships we support.

Overview of Challenges & Value

Challenge

Energy and Climate

Yesterday’s energy and transport systems present countries with challenges and risks relating to national security and the environment, and many people around the world lack access to modern energy supplies. Over the next 40 years, global energy demand will double, with significant challenges as well.

Value

Energy Innovation

GE’s power-generation equipment produces energy from diverse sources: coal, nuclear, gas, hydroelectric, wind, biogas and solar. There are significant opportunities to improve energy systems. Wind and solar can become affordable and mainstream, gas can become even more efficient, and carbon dioxide can be captured from burning gasified coal. Smart grid and energy-efficient appliances and buildings can reduce energy use by half.
Challenge

Water Scarcity

Unlike fossil fuel-based energy, there are no substitutes or alternatives for water. But already around a quarter of the world’s population lives in areas of current or developing water scarcity. Another quarter lack access to the infrastructure needed to get clean, affordable water to their homes. If current rates of freshwater use continue, more than two thirds of people will not have sufficient access to clean water by the year 2025.

Value

Reuse and Desalination

Membrane filters turn wastewater and sea water into reliable, sustainable, clean water. However, these technologies cannot be deployed in sufficient quantities as long as withdrawing water from a river or a well is less expensive than conserving or reusing it. GE is engaged in public policy dialogue to reform regulations so that supplies can be brought into the market.
Challenge

Resource Depletion

The limits of the planet’s natural resources are already stretched. Continuation of today’s level of consumption of exhaustible resources is unsustainable for business, society and the environment. The result is increasing commodity prices and supply constraints.

Value

Product Life Cycle

GE is increasingly working to enable its customers to save natural resources through innovative design, recycling and renovation of equipment, and reduction in materials use. GE’s investments in research and development are producing technological advancements to reduce dependence on rare earth minerals.
Challenge

Chronic Disease

People are living longer and with a greater need for healthcare. Chronic diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, are the leading cause of mortality in the world, and represent the largest proportion of healthcare costs. Game-changing innovations are needed to meet today’s greatest global health challenges: cost, quality and access.

Value

Affordable Healthcare

GE is helping to improve healthcare systems around the world through innovative developments in patient monitoring, healthcare information technologies and medical diagnostics. Healthymagination is GE’s $6 billion, six-year commitment to investing in product and service innovation and research and education to improve the quality of care, reduce costs and increase access for more people.
Challenge

Uneven Economic Development

Competitive economies create rewarding employment, but recent economic events have shaken confidence. Governments around the world face the common challenge of creating the conditions for business to grow employment in the face of economic volatility, rapidly changing technology and competitive pressures.

Value

Productivity and Competitiveness

With nearly 300,000 people working across 100 countries, a skilled and motivated workforce is crucial for GE to create value. Employment in GE’s infrastructure businesses has grown 30% since 2000, and in 2010 and 2011 GE will add another 16,000 manufacturing and high-tech service jobs in the U.S. alone. We advocate for open trade because global competition creates jobs by driving up productivity, creating export opportunities and reducing costs for consumers.
Challenge

Skills Gap

High-value service industries, high-tech manufacturing and new green industries require key skills, particularly in math, engineering and science. In many countries, not all boys and girls complete primary schooling, and in others, including the U.S., lack of achievement in math and science poses serious risks to future competitiveness.

Value

Improving Education

In the U.S., GE’s Developing Futures™ in Education program invests in education systems and curriculum development to help raise student achievement in math and science. Around the world, GE partners with Junior Achievement and the Institute of Higher Education, as well as organizations such as UNICEF, to improve access to education and employment.
Challenge

Conflict and Corruption

Where corruption, crime and conflict undermine justice, law enforcement and delivery of public services, people are unable to realize their fundamental human rights to freedom of speech and belief and freedom from want and fear. Countries with a poor rule of law are bad environments in which to do business, investments are challenging and companies risk becoming complicit in human rights abuses.

Value

Human Rights and Rule of Law

GE is committed to promoting transparency and supporting strong rule of law. Respect for human rights is fundamental to the way GE conducts business around the world. This commitment reduces our risks, but also helps our host countries and business partners develop better systems and effect wider positive change.
Challenge

Financial Volatility

In recent years, the fallout from the financial crisis was significant. Access to credit is crucial for business and households, and sustainable growth depends on financial markets investing for the long term.

Value

Responsible Investment

GE has built a credit business that is aligned to the Company’s core competencies in industrial lending. We have established global responsible lending standards to guide the way we develop and market financial products to consumers. When we finance projects in developing countries, we follow the Equator Principles. These standards and principles reduce the risk of our lending and improve its impacts.
Challenge

Struggling Cities

The world is now more urban than rural, and by 2050, 75% of people will live in cities, many of which are still being built. Rapidly growing cities are threatened by scarce resources, environmental problems, new diseases and transport gridlock. It is estimated that by 2020, 1.4 billion people will be living in slums.

Value

City Partnerships

GE is building new infrastructure with the most efficient solutions around the world. From clean energy and water, to smart grids, to hospitals, to electric vehicles, to high-speed rail, we are developing the infrastructure for rapidly growing cities to become good places to live. In cities from Rotterdam in the Netherlands, to Miami, Florida, to Masdar in Abu Dhabi, GE is working with city authorities to enable transformation and growth of smarter cities. And in London, we are helping to power the 2012 Olympic Games with minimal environmental impact.

This interactive feature corresponds to pages 2-4 of the 2010 Citizenship report.

TAGS: Climate Change, Compliance & Governance, Education, Energy, Environment, GE Developing Futures, Health, healthymagination, Human Rights, Water

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