INSTRUCTIONS: Please read the case first and then answer specifically the proper questions asked
below. PLEASE ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS. PLEASE USE A SEPARATE SHEET OF PAPER TO ANSWER
YOUR QUESTIONS.
Backstory: General Electric Co. decided sustainability was a business opportunity rather than a cost and
pushed into the field in 2005 with its new initiative. But the products and services weren’t only for its
customers — they first transformed GE.
Key moves: GE began looking at sustainability as part of a demographic trend, realizing that scarcity would
increase with population growth. Energy and water use, waste, carbon emissions — all would decline
among the most efficient and sustainable companies. GE saw a profitable business opportunity in helping
companies along this sustainable path to offer environmental solutions.
GE also gambled that carbon would eventually be a cost, following the implementation of previous
regulatory regimes such as limiting acid rain. Although the precise way carbon would be regulated was
unknown, as it still is, the company had little doubt that regulation would happen. Rather than wait, GE
joined a climate coalition with nongovernmental organizations to press for a cap-and-trade system to
build certainty into the future.
INSTRUCTIONS: Please read the case first and then answer specifically the proper questions asked
below. PLEASE ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS. PLEASE USE A SEPARATE SHEET OF PAPER TO ANSWER
YOUR QUESTIONS.
Backstory: General Electric Co. decided sustainability was a business opportunity rather than a cost and
pushed into the field in 2005 with its new initiative. But the products and services weren’t only for its
customers — they first transformed GE.
Key moves: GE began looking at sustainability as part of a demographic trend, realizing that scarcity would
increase with population growth. Energy and water use, waste, carbon emissions — all would decline
among the most efficient and sustainable companies. GE saw a profitable business opportunity in helping
companies along this sustainable path to offer environmental solutions.
GE also gambled that carbon would eventually be a cost, following the implementation of previous
regulatory regimes such as limiting acid rain. Although the precise way carbon would be regulated was
unknown, as it still is, the company had little doubt that regulation would happen. Rather than wait, GE
joined a climate coalition with nongovernmental organizations to press for a cap-and-trade system to
build certainty into the future.
