27 May 2011

Marks & Spencer - an ambitious commitment to tackling waste
Marks & Spencer has cut back on food carrier bag use by 80% and has pledged to stop sending operational and construction waste to landfill by 2012 but bold new targets aim to involve customers, employees and suppliers

Since launching its high-profile sustainability strategy, Plan A, in 2007, Marks & Spencer has more than doubled recycling at its sites, has reduced food packaging by 20% and made its clothes hanger recycling a mainstream policy. The company has also cut back on food carrier bag use by 80% and helped its customers to recycle more packaging, Christmas cards, clothes and soft furnishings.

Waste and recycling is a key part of Plan A, which details the company's commitment to change 100 things over five years.

By 2012 Marks and Spencer has pledged to stop sending operational and construction waste to landfill, reduce food waste and its use of packaging and carrier bags, and help its customers recycle more used M&S products.

These commitments were based on findings from an independent review, commissioned to establish roughly how much and what types of waste the company produced, and where.

M&S used the information it gathered to re-tender waste contracts. Acknowledging that the company alone could not make Plan A happen, suppliers awarded contracts signed up to a range of waste-reducing measures that would make sure they worked alongside the company to find sustainable solutions. These ranged from detailed waste audits to backhauling waste on delivery lorries.

To reduce waste in its stores the company started selling food on its last day of shelf life at a discount and charging 5p for food carrier bags, with the profits donated to the environmental charity, Groundwork.

It introduced recycling schemes for Christmas cards, batteries and small electrical products and simplified the design of its clothes hangers to make them easier to re-use. Across the business, packaging was reviewed in order to use raw materials that were more sustainable and recyclable.

While M&S is the first to admit it hasn't always got everything right, the results speak for themselves.

Since the launch of their plan, the company has reduced the amount of waste that ends up in landfill by around 60,000 tonnes a year. Food waste has been cut by 29%, with virtually all of the remainder being processed into fertiliser or biofuels.

The company now recycles 92% of waste from its stores, offices and warehouses and 89% of its construction materials.

And the standardised recycling labels for packaging it developed with Wrap (Waste and Resources Action Programme) are today used by all major UK retailers.

Progress on commitments is reviewed monthly by a 'how we do business' committee, made up of senior staff, and they are reported on annually.

Waste to landfill one of the company's main non-financial key performance indicators, is reported alongside financial measurements in the company's annual report. And progress on Plan A makes up 20% of the personal performance bonuses received by the chief executive and directors.

In 2010 M&S extended the plan, setting an ambitious goal of becoming the world's most sustainable major retailer by 2015 and accelerating the transition of Plan A to simply the way the company does business.

With bold new targets and plans to involve customers, employees and suppliers more directly, M&S is gearing up for the next phase to make the company even more sustainable.

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