GE Team Forms Center for Assessing Lifecycle Footprint
GE Global Research , the technology development arm for the General Electric Company, has established an Ecoassessment Center of Excellence to discover new frontiers in assessing and managing a product’s environmental footprint throughout the entire lifecycle of the product.
Lifecycle assessment evaluates products for their environmental impact from the raw materials used in early stage research to the end of a product’s useful life and every step in between. GE has engaged a dedicated, multi-disciplinary team of scientists and engineers to systematically develop better, more energy-efficient ways to design and manage products.
"As part of GE’s ecomagination initiative, we have always said ‘green is green.’ With our, Ecoassessment Center of Excellence, it’s really more like ‘green is green is green,'" said Bill Flanagan, who leads the new center. "GE can make money by providing clean technology solutions, while also reducing the environmental footprint of developing those solutions. It’s a win-win-win equation."
Ecomagination represents the company’s commitment to develop and drive clean technology and product solutions that help solve some of the world’s toughest environmental challenges. As part of its commitment, GE is doubling its level of investment in clean R+D from $700 million in 2005 to more than $1.5 billion by 2010. Since the initiative was launched in 2005, GE has more than quadrupled the number of environmental products from 17 to more than 80.
GE Global Research is headquartered in Niskayuna, N.Y., and has facilities in Bangalore, India; Shanghai, China; and Munich, Germany.