C2ES Welcomes GE as New Strategic Partner

The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) announced today that GE has become its fourth Strategic Partner, with a substantial multi-year commitment of support for the newly launched nonprofit.

C2ES is an independent nonpartisan organization promoting strong action and policy addressing the twin challenges of energy and climate change. Launched in November 2011, C2ES is the successor to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, which was widely recognized in the United States and abroad as an influential voice on climate issues. A University of Pennsylvania survey recently named the Center the world’s top environmental think tank.

“We have long valued the Center’s first-rate analysis and its unique ability to engage all sides in the search for sensible and effective actions,” said GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt. “Meeting our critical climate and energy challenges requires the kind of independent, pragmatic thinking that C2ES brings to the debate. GE’s support for C2ES reflects our deep commitment to delivering solutions that work for both our economy and our environment.”

GE joins Entergy, HP and Shell as Strategic Partners of C2ES. Other major contributors to the organization include the Alcoa Foundation, Bank of America, The Energy Foundation, Duke Energy, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

“We’re very pleased to have GE among the diverse group of supporters who’ve made our transition from the Pew Center to C2ES such a success,” said C2ES President Eileen Claussen. “There’s greater need than ever for common sense and common ground in tackling our climate and energy challenges. Through its investments and actions, GE exemplifies the kind of corporate leadership we need to get the job done.”

GE is a diversified technology, media and financial services company with products ranging from aircraft engines, power generation, and water processing technology to medical imaging, business and consumer financing, and industrial products. It employs 300,000 people and serves customers in more than 100 countries.

GE has worked closely with C2ES, and previously the Pew Center, since joining the organization’s Business Environmental Leadership Council (BELC) in 2005. That same year, GE launched its ecomagination initiative, with goals to reduce its environmental footprint while aggressively bringing to market new technologies helping its customers meet pressing environmental challenges. Eileen Claussen serves on the ecomagination Advisory Board.

In its first five years of the ecomagination initiative, the company has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions 24% from a 2004 baseline and its energy intensity by nearly 35%. In 2010, GE Energy Financial Services hit its multiyear target of investing $6 billion in renewable energy, and nearly 30 percent of the business unit’s overall portfolio is now in renewable energy, up from about 6 percent in 2006. The company is also on track to achieve its goal of $10 billion of clean technology R&D investment from 2010-2015.

C2ES, based in Arlington, VA, works to promote climate and energy solutions by:

Providing timely, impartial information and analysis on the scientific, economic, technological and policy dimensions of climate and energy challenges;
Working with policymakers and stakeholders to promote practical, effective climate and energy policies at the state, national and international levels;
Convening multi-stakeholder initiatives, such as ongoing efforts to accelerate the deployment of plug-in electric vehicles and expand the use of captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery;
Convening the Business Environmental Leadership Council, the largest U.S.-based group of companies supporting policy and action to address climate and energy; and
Partnering with companies and others through its Make an Impact program to educate consumers and employees on ways to reduce their energy use and carbon footprints.

C2ES’ predecessor organization, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, was founded in 1998 with the support of The Pew Charitable Trusts. As part of its transition from a private foundation to a public charity, The Pew Charitable Trusts has largely phased out its grant-giving to external organizations, which was the primary impetus for the Pew Center’s reconstitution as C2ES.

C2ES is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3). It is supported by a wide range of philanthropic, corporate and individual contributors, and exercises full and independent control of its policies, projects, and publications. Further information about C2ES is available at www.c2es.org.