Marks & Spencer has announced an ambitious business-wide £200m “eco-plan” for the next five years, set to impact on every part of its operations, which includes measures to minimise its packaging use, focus its packaging choices on “sustainable” materials and foster increased utilisation of recyclate in both its packaging and other products.
A raft of demanding environmental targets set out for the company and its suppliers through until 2012 were unveiled by ceo Stuart Rose, the man who has masterminded the own-brand retailer's recent revival, on January 15.
Mark & Spencer says the 100-point “Plan A” initiative will ensure that by 2012 it is carbon neutral, sends no waste to landfill, has extended sustainable sourcing, “sets new standards in ethical trading” and “has helped customers and employees live a healthier lifestyle”.
While the measures unveiled touch on every imaginable aspect of environmental performance, packaging policy, and a more sustainable approach to all-things packaging, is a key focus. By 2012 Marks & Spencer says it aims to reduce overall packaging use by 25% (including cutting plastic bag use by a third), use only packaging materials from sustainable or recycled sources, restrict these to ones which are easy to recycle or compost (“so customers are not forced to throw rubbish away”), and to be printing symbols on all packs “to make it easy for customers to recycle or compost waste”.
Within plastic packaging, the company plans focussing on just four types - corn starch-derived PLA, PP, PET AND PE, while other planned initiatives include trialling “closed loop” recycling in six Café Revives, (where used packaging can be recycled into M&S product packaging), and subsequently extending this to all 450+ Café Revives and staff restaurants, and using recycled plastics to make polyester for clothing and home products. With its renewed local food sourcing emphasis the company will also clearly label all food imported by air.
Rose said as the plans were unveiled: “M&S will change beyond recognition the way it operates. We will become carbon neutral, only using offsetting as a last resort; we will ensure that none of our clothing or packaging needs to be thrown away. Much of our polyester clothing will be made from recycled plastic bottles. We will also help our suppliers and customers change their behaviour. Because we are own-brand our influence extends to over 2,000 factories, 10,000 farms and 250,000 workers, as well as millions of customers visiting over 500 UK stores.”
Jonathan Porritt, founder director of UK sustainable development body Forum for the Future, who advised M&S on Plan A, adds: “The plan sets a new benchmark in the way businesses should be tackling critical sustainability challenges like waste, fairtrade and climate change. It raises the bar for everyone else - not just retailers, but businesses in every sector.
“We all know that even at the end of these five years there will still be a huge amount for M&S to do, but we warmly welcome the scale of ambition, and, in particular, the commitment to customers and suppliers.”
