Top 20 Rank: 1
Rank among: Electronics: 1
GE's much-publicized "Ecomagination" campaign is aimed at supercharging revenues while doubling its $700 million R&D budget to come up with solar-energy hybrid locomotives, lower-emission aircraft engines, more efficient lighting, and ever more sophisticated water-purification systems. Evidently conservation begins at home: GE cut its own energy bills by about $70 million last year, partly by installing new lighting in more than 100 of its plants, and reduced its greenhouse-gas emissions by about 150,000 tons. And for sheer adaptability over time, GE is hard to beat. Of the 12 companies Charles Dow chose to make up his original Dow Jones industrial average in 1896, GE is the only one still in the index.
More: See how GE rates in 8 key areas.
