GE to unveil environmental investment plan

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - General Electric Co., seeking to cash in on the push toward tougher environmental regulation, plans to unveil an investment, marketing and policy initiative that addresses issues like global warming and water shortages.

GE, the world's largest company by market value, plans to more than double its investment - to $1.5 billion by 2010 - in technologies that include cleaner coal-fired power plants, a diesel-and-electric hybrid locomotive and agricultural silicon that cuts the amount of water and pesticide used in spraying fields, the report said.

The conglomerate aims to achieve $20 billion in sales of environmentally cleaner products by 2010, or double the amount it currently has - a target that would comprise as much as 20 percent of its estimated industrial sales, the Journal said.

The new strategy comes as utilities are preparing to build plants using cleaner coal-burning technology.

GE said it will reduce its global-warming emissions by 1 percent over the next seven years and plans to increase its energy efficiency by 30 percent by 2012, the report said.

While the United States has rejected Kyoto Protocol - an international treaty on global-warming standards - executives at many big U.S. companies have said they believe it only a matter of time before the U.S. imposes some sort of global-warming emissions cap.

GE said its pledge to reduce emissions is significant, given that the company's emissions were on track to grow between 40 percent and 45 percent by 2012 if the company did nothing to curb them.