Marks and Spencer recently made headlines with its £200 million ‘eco-plan’ that aims to make the food and fashion retailer carbon neutral by 2012. Its plan includes labelling air freighted food, improving energy efficiency by 25%, and increasing its use of renewable energy.

Here Richard Gillies, Director of Store Development at M&S, expands on the company’s plan. Gillies, along with M&S’ Head of CSR, are speaking at the next Corporate Climate Response event in London May 29-31.

How long has it taken to create M&S’ ‘eco-plan’?

We launched our Look behind the Label (LBTL) advertising campaign in January 06. It talked about our commitments to only use free range eggs in our food, take hydrogenated vegetable oils out of our food, reduce salt in food, our animal welfare standards for clothing and responsible fish sourcing etc. LBTL was well received by our customers.

At the same time evidence was mounting that the need for action on climate change and other issues such as waste and raw material sourcing was urgent. So last summer Stuart Rose challenged us to develop an ambitious vision for how M&S should be dealing with social and environmental issues in 2012. Over the last 6 months every part of the business, from foods, to clothing, to stores and logistics has worked hard to develop the Plan we launched in January this year. The Plan addresses five major challenges: climate change, waste, sustainable raw materials, fair partner and health.

Who is ultimately in charge of this project?

The commitment to develop and deliver Plan A comes from the very top of the business, from Stuart Rose and his colleagues on the Board. Stuart has created a How we do Business Committee that he personally chairs and which includes representatives from across the business to oversee delivery of the Plan.

Have you hired new personnel or are existing personnel taking on new responsibilities?

Plan A has been entirely self-generated by our existing teams. They have a strong track record of addressing similar challenges. For example, the 10 year journey to make us the only major food retailer in the UK to only use free range eggs (200 million of them) in all the food we sell; our conversion to only selling fairtrade coffee and tea in our stores and cafes; and being the first major high street retailer to launch clothing made from Fairtrade cotton. We have also listened hard over the last few years to many NGOs and other opinion formers who have helped shape our thinking on how to address these major environmental and social challenges.

M&S is renowned for beautiful elaborate packaging. What differences are we going to see?

We have made a very clear commitment to reduce the environmental impact of our packaging. Firstly we are going to reduce our use of non-glass packaging by 25%. Then we are going to focus on the use of packaging materials that are recyclable or compostable and which come from sustainable sources (e.g. recycled plastic, FSC certified cardboard). Finally, we are very clearly going to label all our packaging with consistent easy-to-understand logos to promote customer recycling.

What part of M&S’ eco-plan will be the most challenging?

Am I allowed to say all of it? There are lots of things that will stretch us to the very limit but for which we have a plan to get there. There are a few things for which we don’t have the answer today but we are confident that we can work with our suppliers and others to solve. And of course we must never forget that we are shopkeepers and our job is to sell our customers great products at great prices. All our commitments must be delivered with this in mind. But we believe that we can and should be a business that is both responsible and profitable however difficult the challenge of getting there may be.

ENDS