SUSTAINABILITY INDIVIDUAL

REPORT
Marks and Spencer Plan A

Submitted by:
Jatin Gupta
Section C
2015PGP156

INTRODUCTION
Plan A is the name of a project launched by Marks and Spencer in 2007 as a
100 point with a 5 year span. The goals are a combination of environmental
and ethical objectives. M&S has successfully achieved its aim of a carbon
neutral UK business due to an unprecedented success of Plan A. The new and
improved version of Plan A is christened Plan A 2020, which comprises of 100
modified and new commitments, with the ultimate aim to become the
worlds most sustainable retailer. M&S collaborate with employees,
customers and partners to contribute to save Earth for future generations by
sourcing raw materials in a responsible way, reducing wastage and helping
fellow people.
Marks & Spencers vision for sustainability is "supply chain dependent". It
has collaborated with suppliers in 70 different countries and around two
million workers in 20,000 farms and 2,000 factories
It means that being a fair partner is central to the retailer's strategy, while
transformative ethical and environmental standards are considered essential
to the future of the business.
M&S wants to explore beyond the outlook of its employees, customers and
various stakeholders by working with suppliers to improve environment
performance and develop fair working conditions. Most of the initiatives are
in its global supply chain which forms about 80 percent M&Ss total footprint.
Plan A is essentially a business plan which has been created to prepare M&S
for a future in which its relevance, in a changing social order and limited
resource world, will be dependent on its capability to supply remarkable
services and products.

KEY INITIATIVES
ENVIRONMENT

Building Plan A into products At least one Plan A quality is now

contained in 64% of M&S products sold worldwide, an increase of 7%.
They have extended trusted and tried techniques and also added new

innovations including Pure natural beauty skin care range, which uses
waste grapes from our food supply chain ,M&S approved wine
sustainability schemes and Footglove Earth shoes made from recycled
and sustainably sourced materials. Also being used are fibers collected
through Shwopping to make Topaz filling for M&S mattresses.
Using energy more efficiently and buying green Energy
efficiency in their UK and ROI stores, offices and warehouses has
improved by 36% after weather adjustments and all the electricity
purchased directly were from renewable sources.
Reducing, reusing and recycling waste They have maintained
their zero waste to landfill status by recycling 100% of their UK and ROI
store, office and warehouse waste again this year. They reduced total
waste by 24% against 2008/09 and sent over 90% of remaining food
waste to generate energy through anaerobic digestion.
Avoiding food waste: Due to daily price reductions on shortlife
products and donations of surplus food to charities, including
Community Shop, FareShare and Neighbourly, over 65% of potential
food waste in M&S operated stores in the UK and ROI is avoided. They
have set themselves a target to reduce food waste by 20% per sq foot
by 2020 against 2013/14.
Cutting on delivery packaging M&S has reduced the amount of
packaging they use for home deliveries to customers by 60% to 92g
per parcel compared to 230g in 2008/09
Love Food, Hate Waste they supported WRAPs Love Food, Hate
Waste Ten Cities campaign in Manchester, which was started with
a launch event outside their Manchester city centre store in August
2014.
Learning more about sustainable buildings: They have welcomed
innovative ideas from many sources to help them make their stores
more sustainable, including Sustainable Learning Stores, an M&S New
Engineering Technology process, and external events such as the Big
Innovation Pitch held in 2015.
Testing new ideas in more stores M&S has introduced new trials to
test different solar panels, LED lighting suitable for our clothes
departments, HFC-free refrigeration systems and a Community Room
at their new Wolstanton Stoke store. Theyve also extended new
technologies tested in 2014, including LED lighting to 417 stores,
improved lighting controls to 40, heat reclaim systems to 17 and better
refrigeration compressors and controls to 247 stores.

PEOPLE

Supporting home-grown: M&S has given chances to colleagues to

progress into higher roles by improving their succession planning. 72%
of all appointments made at this level in 2014/15 have gone to
talented individuals already in the organization.
Helping more colleagues champion Plan A M&S has improved the
way their store and regional Plan A Champions work and has given
them better guidance across a range of issues, like fundraising skills,
mentoring a Make Your Mark participant or new Town Centre
Engagement Toolkits.
Mental health M&S supports IND and Rethink Mental Illnesss TimeTo-Change pledge to mental health.
Helping young people Make their Mark Make Your Mark won the a
renewed Big Tick from Business in the Community ,2014 IGD
Employability Award and the Mayors Fund for London Work Experience
Provider Award.
M&S suppliers Make their Mark too 90 M&S suppliers, have also
worked with M&S to provide an additional 1,700 placements for young
unemployed people , by covering more than 150 individual sites
Work placement partners: It funds regional hubs run by The
Employment Academy which are instrumental in helping smaller
companies set up work placement schemes and recruiting participants
Supporting charities: M&S raised 2.45m for health and wellbeing
charities, including 1.3m for Macmillan Cancer Support and 700,000
for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. M&S has raised a total of 20m over
14 years of working with Breakthrough
M&S sparked a UK-wide Movement to Work which was inspired by the
success of Make Your Mark. Though this movement they were
successful in founding a UK-wide Movement to Work in 2013. About
200 employers joined this Movement to Work and the support comes
from The Princes Trust, Jobcentre Plus, the UK Commission for
Employment and Skills, the Trades Union Congress and the
Confederation of British Industry. Movement to Work employers have
created almost 15,000 vocational training and work experience
opportunities for youngsters with an approximate average into work
rate of 50% ,since its launch.

SUPPLY CHAIN

M&S employees did 5,000 paid volunteering days in 2015. Out of

these, 3,000 helped in The Big Beach Clean-up, and their data analysts
completed a 36-hour data dive to help their charity partners analyze
the information in a better way
A wider range of human rights issues has been covered by updating its
Global Sourcing Principles. M&S is currently working with its suppliers
to help them meet these requirement , a plan which was launched on
Human Rights Day in December 2014
Counting on M&S: A program with the RSPB and Butterfly
Conservation to help ten farms that supply M&S to assess and improve
support for birds, bees and other pollinators has been funded. The
counting of the species living on the farms has been started by Local
RSPB and Butterfly Conservation volunteers.
Setting higher standards for leather: Almost 26% of M&S leather
products were made using leather which meets the environmental and
traceability requirements of Leather Working Group (LWG) standards
Celebrating a decade of collaboration with WWF: M&S has
worked with WWF for over ten years, by pursuing their shared vision of
a market that maintains and restores the worlds natural capital. They
worked together on specific projects covering sustainable fishing and
forestry before entering into a partnership in 2007. Marks and Spencer
agreed to a series of three-year plans focusing on issues that mattered
to both organizations, such as fishing, forestry, cotton and water. Some
of the benefits of this partnership on supply chain issues with the
progress are the Better Cotton Initiative in India, sustainably sourcing
wood and sustainably sourcing wild fish.

IMPACT & ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Marks & Spencer's Plan A sustainability plan has earned up 135m of

savings in 2015, a 29 per cent increase on the previous 12 months. It
consists of 30m extra net benefit.

It confirmed that 45 per cent of its products now come under the Plan
A program, up from 30 per cent in the previous year. They are organic,
Fairtrade, carbon neutral, or made from recycled material.

The company announced that it has now sold its one billionth
sustainable product.

M&S revealed that it has managed to decrease carbon emissions by 23

per cent since the launch of Plan A in 2007, after achieving carbon
neutral status in 2012 .

It has reduced waste levels by 28 per cent and water use has gone
down drastically by 27 per cent over the year.

AWARDS

M&S has been awarded as the most ethical clothing retailer by Ethical
Consumer Magazine in 2007. After a survey of 25 top clothes retailers
shops, Ethical Consumer Magazine decided to award M&S as the most
ethical high street retailer

M&S won the triple award for certification for its achievements
regarding waste, water and carbon reduction from the Carbon Trust for
2014 for its leadership in sustainability efforts through its environment
and ethical program which has helped it in achieving zero waste in
landfill area along with becoming a carbon neutral company

M&S was awarded The Big Society Award for its Shopping scheme
whose objective is to lower the volumes of clothes thrown in landfills,
supports the Oxfam cause and also reduces the environmental impact.

M&S received the Sustainable Business of the year by the Environment

and Energy Awards for the year 2013 for its improvements in financial,
social and environmental performance via commitment to sustainable
practices.

M&S efforts to fight climate change, using sustainable raw materials,

trade ethically and simultaneously helping customers to live a healthy
lifestyle have led it to being awarded Sustainability Award at the
National Business Awards in 2012. This was the third time, M&S was
being awarded this prize after 2007 and 2011.

It also won the Responsible Retailer of the Year award at the World
Retail Awards in 2012 for its nil landfill wastes and developing more
sustainable products and carbon neutral operations.

LEARNINGS

Top leadership of M&S has taken up the initiative to come with Plan A
and the results are quite evident. Intention and commitment to
sustainability efforts should come from the top leadership in the
organization. Executives in charge of all departments should be
involved and motivated to demonstrate their commitment. An example
from M&S to implement this is that a component of senior leaders
bonuses are linked to the performance of their Plan A KPIs.
A review committee should be constituted to review decisions taken by
the board. The How We Do Business Committee which has meetings
monthly is M&Ss way.
Instead of specific social and environmental goals, these ambitions
should be merged with operational and strategic plans.
A vital feature of M&Ss Plan A has been to tap into its value chain. For
example, it has set up an online Knowledge Exchange for the
companys 2,500 suppliers to share common knowledge to facilitate
learning.
Employee engagement is also crucial. There is a concentrated drive at
M&S to engage all 75,000 employees with, for example, volunteering
activities. Moreover, the company offered its loft insulation service to
its employees first before it was made available to the public.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://planareport.marksandspencer.com/M&S_PlanAReport2015.pdf
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/marks-and-spencersupply-chain-sustainable-business
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/best-practiceexchange/marks-and-spencer-change-better
http://myacademicassist.com/pdfs/Critical%20Analysis%20of%20Marks
%20and%20Spencer's%20SUstainability.pdf
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2273234/m-s-plan-a-sustainabilitysavings-reach-gbp135m

https://www.ideasforleaders.com/ideas/embedding-csr-and-sustainabilitymarks-spencer
http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/06/marks-and-spencer-2013-plan-aupdate/