Neither was “ecomagination,” once a prime focus of the company. Despite the star power GE brought to the event — in addition to Immelt, there were at least three other GE corporate officers present — Mark Vachon, who heads ecomagination at GE, wasn’t there, nor were any of his lieutenants.
Perhaps this had to do with Immelt’s apparent souring on green messaging, based on Reuters’ report of comments the CEO made last year:
"If I had one thing to do over again I would not have talked so much about green," Immelt said at an event sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Even though I believe in global warming and I believe in the science ... it just took on a connotation that was too elitist; it was too precious and it let opponents think that if you had a green initiative, you didn't care about jobs. I'm a businessman. That's all I care about, is jobs."
So, is ecomagination over?
I asked Beth Comstock, GE’s chief marketing officer, about ecomagination’s absence at the San Francisco event. “It wasn’t intentional,” she responded. She went on to describe a variety of initiatives done under the ecomagination banner — a greener mining business unit and a battery storage play, for example, both launched in 2012 — explaining that “ecomagination is not a special campaign, it’s just the way we work.”
Perhaps. But at one time it was a special campaign. In searching press releases on GE’s corporate website as well as its ecomagination site, it appears that ecomagination has become a secondary messaging platform at best. Internally, it’s a program GE uses to validate environmental metrics (via third-party verification) in order to establish solid underpinnings for its marketing claims. Externally, the brand seems to have lost juice within the company.
Maybe that’s just as well. Given that “green” and “clean” (and “eco”) have become politically problematic language in some circles — at least within the United States — it may be wise for Immelt and his team to quash the sustainability talk. (It’ll be interesting to see if the messaging for the Industrial Internet is different outside the U.S.)
Indeed, it was significant, albeit not surprising, that Immelt — the first to take the stage at the San Francisco event — mentioned the word “revenue” within the first 20 seconds of his presentation. GE’s newest marketing message is all business: productivity, innovation, revenue growth, and a world-class opportunity.
Image by VLADGRIN via Shutterstock
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Interesting article though I
Interesting article though I still question GE's motives. Joel, ask them what kind of cars they use for their sales fleet?
From Joel's excellent piece
From Joel's excellent piece on Ray Anderson http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/08/06/why-aren%E2%80%99t-there-more-ra... it appears that vertebrates are scarce in the C-suite. So it's encouraging to see that there is even some small progress being made to disturb the Nash equilibrium of complacent industry giants.
Metering and software are tweaks, incremental improvements ancillary to "things that spin." Tweaks are like the putter in a golf bag; a pro also has some long irons. Where are GE's long irons, its big ambitions? As evident from its 2010 Ecomagination Challenge, all that GE is interested in is metering and software, not in considering outside suggestions for improvements to its existing inventory. The innovation black hole at Goliath companies, like GE, is explained by Vinod Khosla http://www.khoslaventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/InnovatorsEcosy...
Perhaps the success of
Perhaps the success of sustainability will be in being everywhere and nowhere at the same time. In other words: infused in everything but invisible.
Though GE's retreat from eco-messaging is curious in this day of visible droughts and superstorms that have converted some climate-change doubters. greentechadvocates.com