Our ESG Strategy
Delivery of our ESG strategy and Plan A is embedded across our nine strategic priorities and through our business-unit led operating model. We utilise data, digital and technology solutions and innovation to support the delivery of our ESG strategy, and data aids ESG decision-making so we focus on the issues that are material to our business, and matter most to customers and wider stakeholders.
Environment
Our biggest environmental commitment and challenge is to become a net zero business across our entire value chain by 2040.
Social
People are at the heart of our business. Their talent, commitment to our customers and pride in M&S are key to our long-term growth.
We create a workplace for all employees that is respectful, protects their health and safety, prioritises inclusion and diversity, and focuses on personal development.
We have always served our local communities and, as we emerge from the pandemic, we’re reflecting on the changing needs of our society and will be resetting our community programme.
ESG is core to the M&S brand and our ESG framework brings together the individual business strategies into a shared programme to engage our customers and enable us to track and report on performance at Group level. Our ESG Committee is chaired by Tamara Ingram, a non-executive director (NED), who brings experience from her long-standing leadership career in advertising, marketing and digital communications. Archie Norman, Stuart Machin and Victoria McKenzie-Gould are standing attendees at Committee meetings.
The ESG Committee provides additional rigour, support and challenge for the business, ensuring we continue to focus on delivery of our ESG programme, putting sustainability at the heart of our customer proposition, and to deliver the reinvigorated Plan A programme. It ensures that objectives, metrics and policies related to sustainability are appropriate, reported transparently, and reviewed regularly in line with all statutory requirements. The Committee also supports the Audit Committee in its review of emerging and existing risks relating to ESG.
The Executive Committee (ExCo), as M&S’s senior leadership team, is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the business, and is accountable for the whole programme in addition to compliance with M&S policies and regulations to help drive change and a more sustainable future for M&S.
As Chief Executive Officer, Stuart Machin has responsibility for day-to-day leadership of the business and the Executive Committee, and is also an executive member of the PLC Board.
Managing directors of our businesses are responsible for setting sustainability strategy and targets for the activities and teams they manage. They contribute directly to the group sustainability strategy, for example the recent resetting of Plan A, materiality assessments, and deliberations with ExCo. All strategic discussions are informed by the expectations of our key stakeholders, including customer points of view, the views of colleagues, and investor and regulatory priorities, as well as considering competitor benchmarking and external stakeholder perspectives on environmental and social issues.
