BEIJING (AP) - General Electric Co. CEO Jeff Immelt announced Wednesday the company will expand its environmental initiative by cutting its global water use by 20 percent over five years. Immelt also said the company is raising the sales target for its three-year-old "ecomagination" initiative to promote sales of environmentally friendly technology.
"We believe just like greenhouse gas emissions have been a big societal challenge, the same thing is true for water," Immelt said at a news conference in the Chinese capital. "We are committed to using our technology both inside and outside the company to reduce our water consumption by 20 percent by the year 2012."
GE sales of energy efficient, water saving and pollution reducing products and services exceeded $14 billion in 2007, Immelt said.
GE, based in Fairfield, Conn., said it used 10 billion gallons of fresh water in 2006, in cooling towers and other manufacturing processes.
Immelt said that in its new initiative, the company will re-evaluate its worldwide water usage and take steps to cut consumption by 20 percent. Immelt said that would result in savings of about 1.8 billion gallons of water a year.
GE had set a revenue target for "ecomagination" of $20 billion in annual sales by 2010. But Immelt said the company is now raising that to $25 billion due to the success of the initiative.
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