2min chapter

Wisdom From The Top with Guy Raz cover image

GE: Beth Comstock

Wisdom From The Top with Guy Raz

CHAPTER

GE's New Policy Is Going to Be This

Former GE CEO says the company's new policy was more granular than just reducing emissions. He said it had to be good for the environment and economical, meaning our customers have to be able to afford it. "We were already making some of this kind of technology," he added. The investor community at the time thought it was just a PR move; they couldn't see the numbers yet.

00:00
Speaker 1
Yeah,
Speaker 2
which matters given that he was a CEO. It helped. Basically, the idea was you were saying to leaders around GE, look, our new policy is going to be this. You're going to be held at certain standards. What are you saying? You're going to have to reduce emissions. You're going to have to create greener products and we're going to evaluate that and we're going to put real muscle behind it. Was it that granular or even more so? It
Speaker 1
was. It was even more granular. We basically said, we are going to start to launch a new series of products. We're going to market them and we're going to have a new standard of what's acceptable. It has to be good for the environment and economical, meaning our customers have to be able to afford it and it has to be able to show measurable impact for our customers in both ways. We had the math and the money behind it. We were already making some of this kind of technology. Our research lab had a backlog of products that if we could speed them to market, we could do this. That gave people great confidence. I think that's important in change is that there has to be something believable about it and that really helped. Even though there was
Speaker 2
skepticism and the articles we talked about as a hollow PR move, it eventually was proved to be successful and real. Fast Company were a big piece about it a few years later saying this is real. This is a real thing.
Speaker 1
We've had a number of case studies. We were able to absolutely show at the end of my time there, we were generating $33.0 billion of sales for EcoPro products. Our customers were buying and we had a whole renewable business that had launched. It had entered into not only energy and transportation, but also healthcare. I will say I'm still disappointed when I look back historically that investors were the hardest stakeholder to get excited about it. It was still in those early days and I think that's changed, but frankly, maybe not enough. The investor community, at the time they thought it was just a PR move. Even though we had all the data, they couldn't see the numbers yet. It was too far out.

Get the Snipd
podcast app

Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
App store bannerPlay store banner

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode