Blog

Plastic Hackathon: We’ll go faster and further together

As a packaging technologist, I could tell you a thing or two about the plastic pollution challenges in retail and as a father of three young girls I also feel compelled to make a difference in helping to fix the issue. I’m also a lifelong Aston...

Sparks Customers Raise £5 million for Charity – all through swiping their Sparks card!

A few years ago, we launched our Sparks members programme to reward loyal customers and offer a more personalised shopping experience at M&S. With the customer being at the heart of everything we do, we were determined to go beyond offering incentives...

Our Plastics Plan: What we’ve achieved in the first four months

In September, we outlined how we were step changing our approach to using plastic and we shared an update on our progress before Christmas on our blog. Four months on, here’s our highlight achievements:   Reducing our plastic useMaking our...

Collaboration is key to achieving responsible chemical management

Chemicals are used at almost every stage of the manufacturing process for clothing and footwear, from the production of raw materials like growing cotton with pesticides and fabric dyeing, to the addition of protection benefits such as water repellency....

Over five million meals dished out to communities through M&S redistribution scheme

At M&S, we believe our food is just too good to be wasted, especially when over 1.2 million people in the UK have limited access to fresh food at affordable prices. So we want to play our part in providing meals for local communities while reducing...

#standup4humanRights

Today is the 70th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and I think it’s fair to say that major anniversaries like this prompt us to take stock. When this document, affirming the rights and freedoms of all people, was drafted in 1948,...

Gender, climate change and youth empowerment: Our collaborative programme sees success for Peruvian coffee growers

This week, the COP 24 conference revealed the urgent action we need to take to protect our environment and find solutions to stop climate change. At M&S, we believe we can’t treat climate change in isolation to gain traction as it’s intrinsically...

Celebrating our Award-Winning Virtual Assistant

As we transform to become a digital first retailer, we’ve launched a savvy automated virtual assistant on the M&S website, which is designed to enhance the customer experience and provide a smooth shopping journey.We’re one of the first...

Mobile, Pay, Go: We're enabling more customers to experience the checkout free checkout

Last month, we announced the roll-out of Mobile, Pay, Go across six London stores before Christmas, which enables customers to seamlessly pay for their shopping via the M&S app, without approaching a till.After a successful initial launch in our Waterside...

How partnering with M&S is helping Power to Change to get even closer to communities

What do a laundrette, a childcare provider, a football club, a hydroponic growing operation, a bakery, a café and a heritage venue all have in common? They all took part in the Liverpool Community Business Challenge – a pioneering new partnership project...

Keeping Forests Standing: The Beating Heart of a Sustainable Food System

Forests are at the heart of today’s global environmental crises, biodiversity loss and climate change. Despite a decade of NGO campaigning, government investment and corporate certification pledges, deforestation remains stubbornly and unsustainably high....

Too much plastic isn’t fantastic

Globally, 320 million tonnes of plastic is produced annually, of which only 9% gets recycled and too much is leaching into the environment. We know action on plastics is very important to our customers and at M&S, we're doing everything we can to...