Vic Abate
GE Energy

In anticipation of GE chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt’s keynote speech at the 2009 Net Impact Conference on “Driving Innovation & Economic Renewal in a Global Context,” Net Impact spoke with Vic Abate of GE Energy, about the company’s approach to corporate responsibility and economic renewal. Mr. Abate will also be speaking at the Net Impact Conference on the featured panel, “Building a New Energy Infrastructure.” The interview appears on the Net Impact web site here.

Q. Given the current economic climate, many people are asking whether corporate responsibility can survive a recession. What’s GE’s perspective?

GE is committed to staying true to its core values in these difficult times and believes that our responsible business practices are critical in helping the company and our communities weather the storm. GE’s integrity, our experience and our focus on the social needs of health, infrastructure, energy, finance and education position the company as a natural partner in managing a sustainable economic recovery. GE understands that success is profoundly about the long term, for the business, for our investors, and for our stakeholders. By integrating responsible citizenship into what GE does and working to solve societal problems, GE continues to build a better company and a better world for our stakeholders.

Q. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt recently spoke at the Detroit Economic Club about “An American Renewal,” which focuses on the need to renew America’s economy. In this “reset economy,” how is GE positioning itself?

Change can come, but it requires a new way of thinking — including a clear, determined plan of action and strong leadership. Now that the world has been “reset,” GE plans to lead an aggressive American renewal to win in the future.

An important component of the “American renewal” is the commitment to be good citizens from GE’s global business leaders. To do this, they must focus on the long-term, partner with their communities and local governments, and work with smaller companies in their supply chain to help them compete globally. In the end, business leaders are accountable for the competitiveness of their own country.

Q. What specific actions should a company take to help their country sustain a competitive advantage?

The only way to sustain a real competitive advantage is to invest in the needs of tomorrow. The company has never forgotten the importance of research and development, which is why the company puts six percent of its industrial revenue back into technology every year. In fact, more than half of the products GE sells today didn’t exist a decade ago.

GE has continued to invest in technology and innovation in the areas of clean energy, healthcare and infrastructure across the world, particularly in emerging markets. For instance, of the $6 billion that the company invests in research and development each year, $4 billion is allocated to solving the problems of access to affordable healthcare and clean energy. Through the resulting products and innovations, along with our leadership in education reform, we can play a crucial role in helping to solve global problems.

Q. What about driving innovation and economic renewal in a global context?

Being global, driving innovation, building relationships and leveraging their strengths positions us a natural partner to governments around the world working to create jobs, meet needs, steward common resources and create sustainable growth. GE’s technical expertise, collaborative capability, and alignment to key societal challenges make us a natural partner in developing a “green” recovery.

The need remains for educated, enabled and talented people to create innovations, implement new technologies and improve productivity. Business requires this “human capital” to excel, nations need it to compete and individuals depend on it to thrive. Healthcare and basic education are the foundations. Beyond this, every country needs a system of education that inspires hard work, discipline and creative thinking. The ability to innovate must be valued again for the reset economy to take off.

Q. Where does GE see the reset economy taking us?

The shape of the reset economy is still emerging, and the shared responsibilities it entails are being negotiated in local, national and international policy debates around the world. On the table are the terms upon which we balance public good and private gain — who pays and who benefits — as we mobilize for recovery. Equity, efficiency and justice is an age-old discussion, but one brought into sharp focus by the urgency and scale of this crisis, as well as the opportunity for change that it represents.