ing, more efficient engines, testing them first in the Philippine
cities of Vigan and Puerto Princesa. By this fall, Vigan’s government is requiring all 3,000 of its
city taxis to switch to the new
technology, and if all goes well,
Puerto Princesa and other Asian
cities will adopt it, too. Though
the retrofit is relatively cheap—
just $300 a pop—it’s still a lot
of money for most taxi drivers.
Luckily, government grants can
help offset the cost, and the
increase in fuel efficiency means
that the payback period is less
than a year.
Envirofit expects to sell retrofits
for 100,000 engines by the end of
2007, and two million by 2011.
Best of all, every retrofit the company sells eliminates more than a
ton of pollution a year.
5
GENERAL ELECTRIC
FAIRFIELD, CONNECTICUT
Two years ago, GE hopped onto
the sustainability bandwagon
with its Ecomagination initiative,
promising to attack some of the
world’s biggest problems with an
army of some of the world’s biggest brains. Oil and gas reserves
being depleted? Greenhouse gases
out of control? Over one billion
people lacking clean water? GE’s
on it—and with 25,000 technologists and 2,500 scientists on
staff in its research facilities alone,
it certainly has enough brainpower to make it happen.
The company’s green awakening isn’t about altruism—it’s big
business. GE expects to generate
at least $20 billion in revenue
from green technologies by 2010.
So far, there are more than 40
products in development, from
water-stingy washing machines
and fuel-efficient airplane engines
to hybrid locomotives and mammoth desalination plants.
In the first full year of the
program, revenues from Ecomagination products topped $10
billion. With numbers like that,
GE has been leading by example,
showing corporate America that
doing good and doing well don’t
have to be mutually exclusive.
6
ORGANIC VALLEY
LA FARGE, WISCONSIN
In the U.S., today’s food production is dominated by just a
handful of mammoth industrial
farms—the sheer sizes of which
cause massive erosion and pol-
lute our air, water, and soil with
hazardous gases, toxic chemicals,
and harmful pathogens. Big
farms have given consumers
cheap prices—but they come
with a price, too. For years, large
farms have squeezed out smaller
competitors, who can’t charge the
same low prices.
Recognizing that there’s power
in numbers, in 1988, Organic
Valley, a member-owned co-op,
recruited seven organic dairy
farms to unite against Big Agriculture. Today, the label is made
up of 900 independent farms
whose combined size makes
them able to compete against the
giants. Organic Valley cheese