M&S Continues Green Business Evolution With Plan A Update

Company Performance

M&S Continues Green Business Evolution With Plan A Update

In its 2016 Plan A report, M&S reveals that a further 22 sustainability and CSR commitments were achieved in 2015-16, meaning that 57 of the retailer's 104 Plan A targets for 2020 have now been achieved. Highlights from the 48-page report include 73% of all M&S products now having embedded sustainability credentials, up from 64% last year; along with notable progress on improving UK & Ireland store and warehouse energy and water efficiency - energy use is down by 39%, while water use has dropped by 31% from a 2006/07 baseline. The report also marks the launch of several 'firsts', including the establishment of an interactive supply chain map and the publication of a new M&S Human Rights report.

New trends

According to M&S's director of sustainable business Mike Barry, this Plan A update serves to highlight the retailer's continued evolution of sustainable business and a heightened ambition in three particular areas - human rights, localisation and collaboration. Speaking to edie for the weekly episode of the Sustainable Business Covered podcast, Barry said, "The world never stands still - there's always new trends and new issues that emerge. The big one for us in the last 12 months has been human rights. M&S has always been very good at social compliance - stopping bad things happening in a supply chain that involves thousands of factories and farms. We've said, unequivocally that we not only need to stop bad things from happening, we also need to promote human rights, and help people reach their potential. We've also seen an important trend towards localisation. People are concerned about what's happening in their communities. On its own, this might look like old-fashioned CSR or philanthropy, but it's not-it's a very sophisticated approach to link every M&S store with the local community it serves. And the third area is partnerships-to truly become sustainable, you have to work with others. We've worked very hard within the Consumer Goods Forum to get the world's biggest food & drink companies to work together on sustainability. The report does highlight five Plan A targets that were not achieved, including achieving a 35% improvement in fuel efficiency in food deliveries to stores; integrating Plan A information into how the M&S brand is marketed; reducing UK & ROI Clothing & Home transit packaging waste; the development of international sustainable learning stores; & customer clothes recycling.