Josh Wolfe is best known for his industry-leading expertise in nanotechnology and likewise his focus is often on small, emerging growth companies.

But ironically, one of his core 'buys' is a company that ranks among the biggest of the big: General Electric (NYSE: GE). In his Forbes/Wolfe Emerging Tech Report, he looks at GE and its leading role in "green" technology.

"General Electric disappointed investors when its quarterly earnings recently fell for the first time in 5 years. Profits fell 5.8% to $4.3 billion and revenues rose 8% to $42.2 billion, short of the expected $44 billion.

"Moreover, GE reduced its 2008 annual earnings forecast, citing seizure of credit markets for struggling operations in its consumer and commercial finance divisions.

"'Green' has become transparent at GE. The missing ingredient to BP's green appeal, it seems, was some element of independent accountability. In 2005, when General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt launched GE's own brand of green initiative, ecomagination, he hired New York consultant firm GreenOrder to keep score.

"The effect wasn't so much to make the company appear greener, but to provide its efforts some measure of transparency. Initially, ecomagination was met with predictable skepticism stemming from GE's history of PCB pollution, its $2 billion investment in the petroleum industry, and its business in coal-fired plants.

"But Immelt left little equivocation in his initiative's four ambitious goals. Using 2004 as a benchmark, he committed to: ·

• Reduce GE's total greenhouse gas emissions 1% and improve energy efficiency 30% by 2012
• Double its R&D investments in clean technologies to reach $1.5 billion by 2010
• Increase cleantech revenue to at least $20 billion in 2010
• Provide the public with real numbers regarding its progress using real numbers

"So far, that last bullet proved to be the most valuable of all since, two years after ecomagination's launch, GreenOrder's numbers show GE is ahead of schedule.

"According to the company's 2007 annual report, ecomagination products should hit its target of $20 billion in revenue by 2009, a year early, prompting Immelt to raise the bar a notch to $25 billion by 2010.

"Much of that growth is driven by GE's culture of relentless innovation, which it has focused on cleantech. For example, GE's overall R&D budget for 2006 was $3.7 billion, or about 2.3% of the $160 billion in revenues it drew that year.

"By comparison, the $900 million it specifically funneled toward cleantech R&D in 2006 represents 7.5% of the $12 billion it reaped that year in ecomagination revenues.

"'We think there is a potential big return on cleantech,' said Peter O'Toole, ecomagination's director of public relations. 'That's why we doubled-down on our investment.' Another factor fueling the initiative's success is GE's intrinsic diversity.

"It began with 17 products in 2005. Today, the ecomagination portfolio exceeds 60 products, and pervades every one of GE's businesses. Of note, businesses more deeply vested in the initiative have performed correspondingly better.

"Think Global, the Norwegian electric carmaker in which GE holds a stake, formed a joint-venture with venture firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and RockPort Capital to produce electric vehicles for the North American market.

"Infrastructure generates the lion's share of ecomagination products -a list that includes jet engines and locomotives designed with leading edge fuel efficiency, as well GE's line of solar energy cells,wind power turbines and water filtration systems.

"Last year, GE Infrastructure revenues grew 23%, earnings 22% and orders 26% in the year. More recently, it was the only silver lining amidst GE's disappointing Q1 performance, as its quarterly revenues climbed 23%, more than forecast.

"Similarly, while GE's Commercial Finance and GE Money business were at the center of its Q1 losses, the company's Energy Financial Services (EFS) division clocked one of its best quarterly performances ever.

"Part of Infrastructure, EFS posted a profit of $907 million on $5.6 billion in revenue, compared with segment profit of $689 million on $4.7 billion in revenue in the corresponding quarter of 2007. The division invests $5 billion annually in public energy and water companies, including customers in the oil, gas and coal industries.

"But unit Chief Executive Alex Urquhart told the Financial Times in January that renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, is the division's fastest growing business. EFS hopes to further tap into the $60 billion market, by doubling EFS's investment to $6 billion by 2010.

"Thus, in GE's view, green is growth. Still in its early innings, ecomagination has had a positive, but very limited impact on GE's share price. O'Toole estimates it to be a few pennies per share, which is virtually negligible on a stock that was trading at $33.17 on a market cap of $331 billion at press time.

"But by providing hard numbers, GE's initiative has blunted most criticism from environmentalists and even begun to win some praise. Shareholders haven't complained either-at least not about ecomagination's return on investment.

"Not every company is positioned to make cleantech part of its product portfolio -particularly with a recession threatening margins. But, if anything, a flagging economy could help tech sectors as business look for ways to operate more efficiently. Long-term, we'd anticipate GE's cleantech initiatives will eventually buttress the company's stock price."

Each day, Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers the latest market commentary and favorite investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.