On 15 January 2007, M&S launched an initiative, known as "Plan A", (because there is no Plan B!), to dramatically increase the environmental sustainability of the business within 5 years and expected to cost £200 million.[42]
The plan covers "100 commitments over 5 years to address the key social and environmental challenges facing M&S today and in the future" with the tag-line "Because there is no Plan B". The commitments span five themes: climate change, waste, sustainable raw materials, 'fair partnership' and health,[41] with the aim that, by 2012, it will:[43]
2011 Oracle World Retail Award winners at the World Retail Congress.
From Branson's new book, which coins Capitalism 24902 (chapter 1 downloadable for free)
It’s really pleasing to see these wonderful small businesses
making a difference, but what about the responsibility of
some of the larger ones? One of the companies that certainly
has taken this challenge on board at the core of their business
is Marks & Spencer. M&S, the huge UK-based retailer
with £10 billion in annual revenue, with whom just about
everyone in Britain is familiar, has set out to be the world’s
most sustainable retailer by 2015. In 2007, they launched
Plan A (obviously because there is no Plan B!). This plan is
it includes a dizzying and ambitious 180 commitments
focusing on every aspect of their business, from decreasing
waste through to the health and wellbeing of their staff
and communities. With over twenty-one million customers
visiting their stores each week and a supply chain consisting
of tens of thousands of farms and factories, even a small shift
as they ‘screw business as usual’ can have a dramatic impact.
M&S also put even more weight behind Plan A by allocating
£50 million for an innovation fund. All these efforts
are already paying off. As I write, they’ve achieved 95 of their
180 commitments and are on track for most of the others,
including recycling 94 per cent of the waste generated by
their stores, reducing carbon emissions by over 13 per cent,
shifting to sustainable supply sources such as 90 per cent of
the wild fish they sell. And the list goes on …
Stuart Rose, then CEO of Marks & Spencer, and Mike
Barry, Head of Sustainable Business, did not see this as a
one-off marketing campaign; they saw it as a platform to
deliver business outcomes and an opportunity to improve
their bottom line – which it has done. Plan A was cost-neutral
in its second year, made £50 million in 2009 and £70 million
in 2010. Mike summed it up really well in an interview with
the Business Green website in November 2010: ‘People are
now getting the mindset that says, we’re not at the top of this
little hill called Corporate Social Responsibility, we’re at the
bottom of this big mountain called sustainability.’
Comments