GE sets zero-emissions target by 2050

Ge said there are "engineering challenges" that need to be solved for it to meet its goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. AP Photo

General Electric vowed to curb the greenhouse gases produced by the use of its products – including thousands of fossil-fuelled turbines and jet engines in operation around the world – in a bid to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

The new goal, announced in GE’s annual sustainability report on Monday, shows the industrial giant plans to go beyond an earlier pledge to make its own operations carbon neutral by 2030.

The announcement does not include specific targets or concrete details about how it will achieve those emissions cuts, however, nor has the company yet quantified the reductions necessary to achieve that goal, though it said it would do so in the future.

In the report, GE said its new “ambition” was a first step towards addressing the emissions from its products and supply chain, known as Scope 3. (Scopes 1 and 2 are related to production and operations.)

“We are particularly aware of the engineering challenges still to be solved to make the ambition of net zero a reality,” chief executive Larry Culp said in a letter to shareholders released with the report. “We plan to continue developing and to communicate details about more specific, nearer term GE greenhouse gas reduction metrics and targets that include Scope 3 emissions.”

The new objective comes after GE investors in May overwhelmingly backed a shareholder proposal pushing the company to say whether it planned to reach net-zero by 2050.

As You Sow, the shareholder advocacy group behind the push, also urged the company to include emissions from the use of its products and its supply chain in its net zero goal, saying it had been slow to address this category, undoubtedly the largest associated with the company.

Doing so would give investors a clearer picture of how the company planned to address its climate footprint, the group said. GE’s board supported the proposal.

GE is a top supplier of wind turbines and provides other technologies that have a role in the electricity sector’s shift away from fossil-fuel power generation, but its jet-engine and gas-power units face stiff challenges in the coming decades as pressure mounts from governments, investors and the public to eliminate pollution that contributes to climate change.