Marks & Spencer today reports on the achievements of Plan A, during the first financial year of the five-year ‘eco-plan’ plan. So far, 17 of the 100 commitments have been delivered and a further 77 are underway.
Sir Stuart Rose, Chief Executive, Marks & Spencer said:
“Despite tough conditions on the high street, we’ve made good progress in implementing Plan A. Although we invested in areas such as improving refrigeration systems, we found Plan A to be cost neutral during the year, due to, for example, the reduction in energy use, improved logistics, and reducing food waste in-stores. We believe we are well positioned to continue to drive our commitments forward and we know it is also what our customers expect us to do.”
Recent Plan A highlights and achievements from 2007/08 include:
CO2 emissions in our stores, offices, warehouses and delivery vehicles reduced by nearly 50,000 tonnes, which is a 9% decrease on last year, despite opening 103 new stores.
Over 4.8 million Fairtrade cotton garments sold across womenswear, menswear, lingerie, kidswear and homewear product ranges. Fairtrade food and drink sales up 20% to £100m.
Organic food sales up over 40% to £145 m across 590 different product lines. Over 700,000 organic cotton, wool and linen garments sold and 300,000 garments, including fleeces, made from 4 million recycled PET plastic bottles.
Eat Well food sales were up 4% with sales of £1.4 bn across 1,100 lines.
During the course of the year we ran successful trials(1) in Northern Ireland and the South West of England, charging 5p for single use food carrier bags. Following this we rolled-out the charge to all our UK stores(2) in early May 2008. All profit(3) from the sale of the bags are being invested in ‘greener living spaces’ projects in partnership with Groundwork UK, to improve parks, play areas and gardens in neighbourhoods around the UK. It is also a major step towards M&S’ Plan A commitments to reduce carrier bag usage by a third and send no waste to landfill from its operations by 2012.
At the start of 2008, M&S formed a partnership with Oxfam to launch the M&S and Oxfam Clothes Exchange, the biggest programme in the UK to encourage consumers to recycle their clothes. The Exchange is designed both to raise money for Oxfam’s work to tackle poverty and injustice and to reduce the one million tonnes of clothing(4) sent by the public to landfill in the UK each year.
In April, M&S supported the opening of the first two supplier eco-factories. Both locations in Sri Lanka, are producing garments for M&S and aspects include on-site energy generation and significant reductions in energy and water use. One has also been designed to be carbon neutral, features the biggest installation of solar panels to date in Sri Lanka and has a ‘green’ roof. M&S supported the creation of the factories through sponsorship of key features and provided advice from its store development team, following the opening of three M&S eco-stores in the UK.
Richard Gillies has also been recently appointed as Director of Plan A, reporting into Stuart Rose, to work across all areas of the business and improve performance systems.
Richard Gillies, Director of Plan A, Marks & Spencer said: “We have achieved a great deal and learnt a lot during the first 15 months of Plan A. We engaged and involved customers in reducing food carrier bag use, recycling clothing and reducing wash temperatures. We also worked with suppliers to open two eco-factories in Sri Lanka and reduced our CO2 emissions in our operations by 9%, despite opening 103(5) more stores. We continue to review our Plan A commitments to ensure they remain relevant, which is why, for example, we put a ‘freeze’ last year on the use of bio-fuels until sustainable supplies are available.”
Launched in January 2007, Plan A is M&S’ £200m eco-plan, which sets out the company’s 100 ‘eco-targets’ for the next five years, including making its own operations carbon neutral.
The 100-point Plan A includes five-year targets in five areas. Progress to date includes:
1. Climate change: aiming to make our operations in UK and Republic of Ireland carbon neutral, only using offsetting as a last resort, and helping customers and suppliers to reduce their emissions too.
The first two ‘eco-factories’ in our supply chain opened in Sri Lanka in April. One of the factories, owned and operated by MAS, is newly built and is producing lingerie exclusively for M&S, and has been designed to become carbon neutral. It features:
- The biggest installation of solar panels to date in Sri Lanka, producing 10% of electricity required for the plant. The remaining electricity is mini-hydro, sourced through a ‘green’ power agreement, one of the first in Sri Lanka.
- Low energy cooling systems to replace air conditioning, including ‘green’ roofs (vegetation on top), ‘cool’ roofs (solar reflectivity), and strategically positioned courtyards to cool the microclimate. ‘Eco’ bricks were also used in construction to help maintain a cool interior. Other systems to help use 40% less electricity and 50% less water, compared to a similar scale factory.
The other factory in Sri Lanka, owned and operated by Brandix, is producing casual clothing and has been redeveloped to reduce carbon emissions by 75%, energy use by 45% and water use by nearly 60%.
M&S supported the development of the factories through sponsorship of features such as solar panels and architects’ design costs. Advice was also provided from our UK-based store development teams, following the opening of three M&S eco-stores in the UK last year. Key learnings from both factories are being shared across our supply chain and further eco-factories are being planned in Bangladesh and China.
In our own operations (stores, warehouses, offices and delivery vehicles), we have cut carbon dioxide (CO2) by 9% (48,000 tonnes), despite opening 103 new stores, increasing our salesfloor space by 5%. Energy usage in stores also decreased by 4% compared to last year and the amount of renewable electricity used in our stores, offices and warehouses increased to 23%.
In November 2007 we started to use food waste to power some of our stores. The renewable electricity is being provided through an anaerobic digester in Shropshire, which is taking household food waste and converting it into electricity. The site is the first of two anaerobic digesters to supply M&S. The other anaerobic digester will be located on a farm later this year and will be fuelled by cow slurry and agricultural crops. Together, they will produce enough renewable electricity to power six M&S Simply Food stores.
We opened our first three ‘eco-stores’ in October 2007. The stores feature energy efficient lighting, air conditioning and fridges; eco-friendly building materials and are powered by ‘green’ energy. The stores emit up to 95% less CO2 than other M&S stores and use up to 55% less energy. They are located in:
- Bournemouth: the remodel of an existing 70-year old store
- Pollok: a brand-new store at Silverburn Retail Park
- Galashiels: a brand-new Simply Food store
We have introduced a revolutionary, articulated trailer for our lorries, whose teardrop shape reduces CO2 emissions by 20%, when compared to a standard cab-trailer fleet operation. We currently have 141 of the trailers on the road, all of which can carry up to 16% more load than a standard trailer. The trucks’ aerodynamic shape also delivers a 10% fuel saving. The teardrop trailer will reduce M&S’ CO2 emissions by 840 tonnes every year(6) .
In December we were awarded the World Environment Centre (WEC) Gold Medal for Sustainable Business. We also lead the global retail sector in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and share the top place (retail category) in the Carbon Disclosure Project.
2. Waste: aiming to stop sending waste to landfill from our UK stores, offices and warehouses; reduce our use of non-glass packaging by 25% and carrier bags by 33%; find new ways to recycle and reuse the materials we use.
The amount of other waste sent to landfill from our stores, offices and warehouses send has been reduced by 6%. To further improve food waste in stores, we now reduce prices of food items that will pass their display-date that evening. It’s the first time we have done this and we believe it has the potential to cut food waste by 10%. We are also trialling the collection of food waste in 38 stores to create electricity through anaerobic digestion or compost. Around 1,100 tonnes of food waste has been collected so far. Around 75% of all construction waste from our store development programme(7) is now sent for recycling.
Last summer we ran a food carrier bag charging trial in 15 M&S stores in Northern Ireland, and 33 stores in the South West of England. The trial in Northern Ireland led to a 66% reduction in the number of bags used, with three quarters of M&S customers using an alternative to the standard food carrier bag each time they shop. It also raised over £40,000 for environmental regeneration projects managed by Groundwork Northern Ireland.
On 6 May 2008, we became the first major high-street retailer to roll-out a national carrier bag charging programme. All profits raised from the 5p charge for single use food carrier bags, will be donated to the environmental charity, Groundwork, to support ‘greener living spaces’ projects to improve neighbourhoods across the UK.
Through the charge, M&S is aiming to:
- Encourage customers to reduce the amount of bags they use by switching from taking single use carrier bags with every purchase to bringing a reusable ‘bag for life’ with them each time they shop.
- Raise up to £1m for Groundwork to invest in creating or improving ‘greener living spaces’ such as parks, play areas and gardens in neighbourhoods around the UK. The first five projects to be supported through the partnership are located in Scarborough, Nottingham, Wigan, Hammersmith and Edinburgh.
Since the beginning of May, customers have also been able to return any unwanted or used carrier bags to till points or customer service desks in M&S stores for recycling.
A new standard food carrier bag, made from 100% post-consumer waste, is also being introduced to M&S stores nation-wide. It’s estimated that this move will reduce the amount of virgin plastic M&S uses by 3,400 tonnes(8) per year.
At the end of January 2008 we launched the UK’s biggest clothes recycling scheme with Oxfam. As part of the M&S and Oxfam Clothes Exchange, customers are encouraged to return unwanted M&S clothing to the charity’s stores in return for a £5 M&S voucher to spend on clothing, home or beauty products the next time they shop at M&S. Up to 234,000 people have donated their M&S clothing to Oxfam so far, raising over £466,000 for the charity.
In April 2008 we launched a scheme with Closed Loop, a recycling company, to facilitate the collection and recycling of M&S Food to Go packaging from offices in Greater London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester. We also now have WRAP symbols on over 80% of our food packaging and 14% of our clothing and home packaging to advise customers on the materials used and recyclability. The total tonnage savings on packaging for our 07/08 financial year is currently being compiled and audited, and will be available in June. However, we currently have over 300 food packaging reduction projects underway, which we estimate will save 1,400 tonnes of packaging a year once they are fully implemented.
Over the course of the year we helped to recycle 122 million coat hangers, nearly 30 million more than last year, and 11 million Christmas cards.
3. Raw materials: aiming to ensure our key raw materials come from the most sustainable sources available to us.
Over the year we also sold over 700,000 organic cotton, wool and linen garments. We also helped recyle 4 million PET plastic bottles to make 300,000 polyester garments, including fleeces.
We now offer over 590 organic food lines, which has helped increase sales of organic food by over 40%.
We’ve also gone further on animal testing. Although we’ve never tested our beauty or homecare products on animals, we’re now the first major UK retailer to guarantee that none of the individual ingredients they contain have been tested on animals either, meeting the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection’s (BUAV) Cruetly Free standards. During 2008/09 we will include the BUAV Leaping Bunny logo on all our beauty and homecare products packaging.
Our whole fresh ducks, geese and turkeys are now sourced from free range producers and our Oakham chicken flocks are now kept at reduced stocking densities to meet RSPCA recommended standards. We were also the first major UK retailer to stop selling imported white veal and calves liver because of animal welfare concerns. We now only sell UK-reared veal which meets rigorous animal welfare standards backed by the RSPCA.
All M&S tissues, kitchen, toilet rolls, sandwich cardboard packs, the Your M&S (customer) magazine, and 30 million Christmas cards are now manufactured using Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified pulp or recycled wood. Most of the wood used in our garden furtniture ranges is also FSC certified and the photocopier paper used in stores and offices contains 80% recycled wood pulp.
During 2007 we conducted two successful bio-fuel trials at our warehouses in Hemel Hempstead and Crewe. However, following further discussions with environmental groups about the possible impacts of bio-fuels, we put this commitment ‘on hold’ in summer 2007 until sustainable supplies of biodiesel are available. We are also continuing to reduce our use of palm oil in our products and replace it with other suitable alternatives wherever possible. We are members of GreenPalm, a certified palm oil trading scheme and are currently waiting for the first volumes of certified palm oil to become available. We have also helped to fund the WWF Heart of Borneo project which aims to restore and conserve forest land in Borneo affected by palm oil and logging activities.
4. Fair partner: aiming to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in our supply chain and our local communities.
Fairtrade food and drink sales increased by nearly 20% over the course of the year. We also sold over 4.8 million Fairtrade cotton garments.
We revised and strengthened our commitments around ethical sourcing and as part of this we decided to create Ethical Model Factories. The first three garment factories have now been identified in Bangladesh and work is underway. The aim of the project is to create long-term improvements in labour standards and establish the level of a living wage. A further three factories in other countries will be identified over the course of the year. Once the Ethical Model Factories have operated successfully for one year, a best practice country guide will be developed for all M&S suppliers.
M&S customers helped to raise £1.6 million for Breakthrough Breast Cancer, a cause we’ve backed for seven years.
Over the 2007/08 financial year, we invested(9) £15.0 million in community projects in the UK and Republic of Ireland. This is an increase on the £13.9 million invested in 2006/07.
5. Health: aiming to help thousands of customers and employees choose a healthier lifestyle.
All food produced after 1 April 2008 is completely free of artificial flavours and colourings. Having done this with our children’s food by September 2007, we then extended it to all foods.
All salmon sold fresh, frozen or as an ingredient in sandwiches or ready meals is now Omega 3 rich ‘Lochmuir’ salmon.
Both the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) nutritional traffic light and Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) now appear on the front of pack labels on all categories of food recommended by the FSA.
Eat Well now represents nearly 30% of all our food. In January 2008, we distributed an ‘Eat Well’ food guide to managers and Healthy Eating Assistants working in our food halls under the title ‘Feel Great in 08’ and we re-launched the ‘Ask the nutritionist’ feature on our website. M&S employees can now choose ‘Eat Well’ options in our employee restaurants and can learn more from regular health features in our employee magazine.
We made steady progress on our commitment to reduce salt in our products and now meet 11 of the FSA’s 15 salt targets for 2010. These were recognised as contributing high levels of salt to diets and have been priority areas for M&S. These are buns, cakes, pastries, fruit pies, ready meals, sandwiches, breakfast cereals, bread, baked beans, soups and sauces.
Further details on Plan A progress will be available in the M&S ‘How We Do Business’ report, our fifth annual report on social, environmental and ethical performance, which will be released in June.
For further information, go to www.marksandspencer.com/plana
For images, please go to www.mandslibrary.co.uk
For media enquiries, please call:
Olivia Ross Marks & Spencer 0208 718 1618 / 07795 968 641
Clare Wilkes Marks & Spencer 0208 718 8642 / 07831 829 891
- M&S has successfully trialled charging for food carrier bags in over 50 M&S stores in Northern Ireland and the South West of England in the last twelve months. The trials resulted in customers’ use of food carrier bags reducing by over 70% and raised over £80,000 for Groundwork. This money is now being invested in six projects across those regions including the development of the Daisy Hill Woodland in Newry, the creation of a play area at the Old Warren Community Centre in Lisburn and improving a green space at Woodhay Road in Plymouth.
- Excluding M&S stores in the South West of England and Northern Ireland where charging is already in place, and M&S Outlet stores.
- All of the 1.85p profit from the sale of single use food carrier bags will be donated to Groundwork.
- Source: DEFRA 2006.
- Net gain.
- Compared with 2006.
- We are currently on-site in around 60 stores across the UK as part of our store refurbishment programme
- Based on current M&S standard food carrier bag usage. This is in addition to a 3,300 tonne annual saving that M&S made by converting its ‘bag for life’, clothing and home carrier bags to 100% recycled post consumer waste in April 2007.
- Includes gifts in kind.
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