M & S: Most Sustainable?

This week, M&S announced their intention to become the world's most sustainable retailer by 2015.

Sounds good. Not least because it sets a standard for more supermarkets to follow. But what does it mean in practice?

Well, sustainability is not a new goal for M&S. Plan A, the project they launched in 2007, has already had a measurable impact:

- Stores are now 10% more energy efficient
- Logisitics are 20% more fuel efficient
- Food packaging has reduced by 16%
- Over 50% of wood is FSC or recycled
- Food carrier bag use has reduced by 83%
- Customers have been encouraged to recycle 2 million garments a year
- 7 million garments sold per year have been made from Fairtrade cotton
- All eggs are free range
- All artificial colours, flavours and trans-fats have been removed from food

It's a great start. And perhaps the most surprising part of all of this is that it's helped them *save* £50 million this year. Yes indeed, sustainability has been the recession-friendly option. 

Most sustainable retailer by 2015

So what's M&S planning to do over the next five years to make this happen?

Well, here are some of the highlights. They're promising to:

- build Plan A into each of the 2.7 billion M&S products sold each year by 2020 (50% of products by 2015)

- help 1 million M&S customers develop their own personal Plan A by 2015 and (3 million by 2020)

- launch a £100,000 prize called Your Green Idea for the best customer idea to help green M&S

- offer staff free loft insulation and a paid day's leave to volunteer in the community

- launch a £50 million internal innovation fund to help find the breakthrough technologies of the future

- engage 10,000 farmers in their Sustainable Agriculture Programme

- engage all food suppliers with a balanced scorecard of social, environmental and lean manufacturing requirements

- ensure clothing suppliers pay a fair living wage in the least developed countries they source from, starting with Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka

- source key raw materials (soya, palm oil, coffee, tea, cocoa and leather) from places that don't contribute to deforestation

- increase clothing recycling from 2 million garments per year to 20 million.

All very good to hear, we think you'll agree. And we're very happy to spot Plan A's commitment to Plug out in their Turn it off tip :-)

They sum up their goal as: "every M&S product, customer and supplier engaged." And they add "In aiming to become the most sustainable major retailer in the world we are mindful that we have no monopoly on commitment or performance in our sector. Nor does it diminish our commitment to work in partnership with others. However, we believe a commitment to lead is a powerful statement that sustainability matters and is integral to our future business success."

Good work M&S. I know where I'll be buying my groceries next week...

You can find out more about all the changes being made by Plan A at plana.marksandspencer.com

And you can enter Your Green Idea now by visiting www.yourgreenidea.co.uk

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