APPLIANCES: GE’s “ecomagination” commitment and eco-friendly products

Part of our efforts here at GetWithGreen.com are not only to inform you of new and practical products for your home remodel, makeover, and/or improvement, but we also want to give you some background on the manufacturers and vendors who bring you those products.  Today we wanted to bring a perspective on GE.   We note that this is NOT a paid advertisement, but rather a result of the GWG team investigating energy efficient appliances available from GE (more on this coming soon!!).

 In May 2005, GE commited themselves to an effort called “ecomagination“, which meant for GE:

• Double investments in Clean Research and Development (including wind energy, solar/photovoltaics, biofuels, and more)
• Increase Revenues from Ecomagination Products (help customers to improve their operations, business or home, and environmental impact) 
• Reduce their Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GE made a public commitment to reducing their emissions and you can track their progress in this report - Greenhouse Gas Inventory 2007)
• Keep the Public Informed - Annual Citizens Report issued, and other public events are scheduled 

Some “greener” products for our home remodeling projects that are a result of the ecomagination effort include: 

Consumer Finance 
Earth Rewards (SM) Platinum MasterCard contributes a percentage of every purchase to environmental organizations while giving homeowners/consumers cash back

Solar Photovoltaics
Enables us to harness the sun’s energy to generate power and realize savings on our monthly energy costs

Energy Smart Compact Fluorescent Lighting 
GE makes more than 50 models of compact fluorescent bulbs. Of all the screw-in CFLs GE sold in 2005, 99 percent were ENERGY STAR®-qualified, producing energy savings of up to 75 percent.

ENERGY STAR®-qualified Front-Load Washers
The GE front-load washer exceeds 2004 ENERGY STAR® guidelines by 28 percent and already meets 2007 energy standards. The washer saves up to 23 gallons of water per load, or 61 percent of the water used by a typical washer. In fact, the front-load washer can pay for itself in water and energy savings over the course of its life.

ENERGY STAR®-qualified water dispensers
GE ENERGY STAR®-qualified water dispensers save up to 25 percent of the energy required to power a non-ENERGY STAR® model.

ENERGY STAR®-qualified refrigerators
GE ENERGY STAR®-qualified refrigerators use at least 15 percent less energy than federal standards currently require.

Ecomagination-certified products must go through an Ecomagination Product Review (EPR) scorecard, which quantifies the product’s environmental impacts and benefits relative to other products. To ensure the accuracy of the scorecard, GE works with GreenOrder to provide independent, quantitative environmental analysis and verification of GE’s product claims.

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