Will Marre Announces How GE Turns Corporate Social Responsibility into Corporate Social Opportunity

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Leadership expert, Will Marre, spotlights GE on his Giving is Winning blog for their dedication to innovation that will solve the world’s biggest challenges.

GE has used innovation to take social responsibility to a whole new level, according to Will Marre, leadership expert and speaker and author of Save the World and Still Be Home For Dinner. Marre is spotlighting GE as part of his Giving is Winning campaign in which he is bringing attention to companies that go beyond social responsibility to what he calls social opportunity.

Marre’s list of Giving is Winning companies stems from his extensive research, 21 Companies for the 21st Century (http://www.willmarre.com/wm/21-companies-leadershi...), being conducted with Clemson University and the University of California San Diego on what successful companies are doing in today’s challenging environment that average companies are not.

According to Marre, when you transform corporate social responsibility into corporate social opportunity it triggers thinking about how to make money through innovations that benefit humanity or heal the environment, or both. He states, “The focus of my Giving is Winning blog is to inspire business leaders to seek for opportunities to save the world. I fear that too many business leaders view the responsibility of creating a sustainable future as a burden, a responsibility to be dealt with rather than the great opportunity that it is. But that is indeed what it is—a great opportunity.”

GE is a great example of corporate social opportunity, contends Marre. Their Ecomagination is a business initiative to help meet customers’ demand for more energy-efficient products and to drive reliable growth for GE. It reflects GE’s commitment to invest in innovative solutions to environmental challenges, delivering valuable products and services to customers while generating profitable growth for the company. As proof of the effectiveness of GE's program, the Ecomagination portfolio has grown from 17 products to more than 80 today, with revenues reaching over $20 billion in 2010.

In addition, Healthymagination is GE’s six-year, $6 billion commitment to healthcare innovation that will help deliver better care to more people at lower cost, all while growing the company.

GE states, “From jet engines to power generation, financial services to water processing, and medical imaging to media content, GE people worldwide are dedicated to turning imaginative ideas into leading products and services that help solve some of the world’s toughest problems.”

Visit http://www.willmarre.com/blog to follow Marre’s Winning is Giving blog and get a special series based on his research findings, “Apple to Zappos: What Today’s Successful Leaders Are Doing That the Rest of Us Aren’t.”

About Will Marre:

Will Marre is CEO of Realeadership Alliance and founder of Thought Rocket, a new online leadership development platform providing up-to-the-minute leadership research on what successful organizations are doing to thrive in the 21st century. Will Marre is also the cofounder of the Covey Leadership Center where he brought the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to millions of executives and managers worldwide. He also heads the advisory board of the Human Performance Institute (a Johnson & Johnson company) and is an Emmy award-winning writer of a public television learning documentary. For more information please visit http://www.willmarre.com.