The Project
General Electric (GE) has been working to reduce freshwater use at its facilities since 2005. Focusing on their most water-intensive facilities, GE has optimized efficiency in water treatment and reuse, wastewater treatment and reuse, and process-system solutions. Having achieved a water reduction of 29% in 2016, the company has already exceeded their most recent goal of 20% reduction of the 2011 baseline by 2020.
In looking ahead, GE must identify their next steps for pursuing water reduction beyond 2020. To make meaningful progress towards common global challenges, GE must strive for new goals and innovative approaches to addressing water sustainability in the next era.
Our role?
Our role is to develop a set of recommendations for GE in the form of a water action plan for 2020 and beyond. The project began with an assessment of GE’s previous and current water goals and other organizations’ approaches to water sustainability. This landscape analysis looked at consumption reductions, reuse and recycling, customer expectations, peer/competitor activity, technology advancement, social issues, supply chain opportunities, and other relevant aspects. From there we also assessed GE’s current operations, historic water use, water use hotspots, product installed base efficiency opportunities, and supply chain partnerships. The next steps now include further literature review, interviews with facility managers, and multi-criteria decision analyses to determine priority water reduction projects, and the develop context-based water targets.
NEXT GEN OBJECTIVES
The main goal of this project is to develop the next generation water action plan for General Electric’s Environmental Health and Safety, and Ecomagination teams. This will be achieved through a series of objectives listed below:
