GE offers 'Green' credit card

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Bloomberg News

General Electric Co., the world's second-biggest company by market value, will offer a credit card that allows customers to use reward points to reduce global warming by purchasing greenhouse gas-emissions offsets.

The Earth Rewards Platinum MasterCard is the first of its kind in the U.S., Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE said today. On Earth Day each year, accumulated points will be used to fund projects that reduce emissions led by a venture of GE's energy finance unit and electricity producer AES Corp.

The offering is part of Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt's "ecomagination" campaign, under which GE sold $12 billion of environmentally friendly products last year such as lower-emission power-plant turbines. GE joins issuers including Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. in tapping desire for a cleaner environment. Greenhouse gasses are blamed for global warming.

"Consumers want this," said Lorraine Bolsinger, vice president of the GE ecomagination effort, in an interview today. "We have this wonderful, very unique situation where we can create verifiable, credible offsets, and GE Money in the upfront piece can deliver."

Shares of General Electric, the biggest issuer of private- label credit cards, fell 19 cents to $40.41 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They had climbed 23 percent in the past year before today.

Buying Credits

The joint venture between GE and Arlington, Virginia-based AES invests in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions -- like methane-collection systems -- and gets credits from the U.S. government. Points earned from the rewards will be used to purchase and retire credits. The venture profits by selling credits to companies such as utilities that need them to comply with regulatory pollution limits.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/green/articl...mcard25-ON.html

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Hopefully the money will go towards building nuclear reactors. GE makes a nice Rx.

[Heracles 417]

Hopefully the money will go towards building nuclear reactors. GE makes a nice Rx.