Plan A contributes £70 mn for Marks & Spencer

10 Jun '11

5 min read

It met for the first time in March and will meet twice a year over the next four years.

Other members are:

• David Nussbaum, CEO, WWF UK;
• David McCullough, Trading Director; Oxfam GB;
• Martha Lane Fox, Non-Executive Director, M&S;
• Aron Cramer, President and CEO, Business for Social Responsibility;
• Danny Truell, CIO, Wellcome Trust;
• Ritu Kumar, CEO, TERI-Europe;
• Rebecca Henderson, Prof of Environment Management, Harvard Business School;
• Peggy Liu, Chair of Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy;
• Gavin Neath, SVP Communications and Sustainability, Unilever.

Other report highlights

• Last year M&S collected three million unwanted garments through the Oxfam Clothes Exchange, raising around £3.3 million for Oxfam;
• Last year over £10 million was invested by the Plan A Innovation Fund into projects that support early stage R&D into green products and services;
• Reduced carbon emissions by 13% (25% on like-for-like basis) since 2007;
• Fuel efficiency on delivery fleets has improved by 20% (clothing, home and gifts) and 22% (food) since 2007;
• 28 stores now use more environmentally friendly CO2 refrigeration systems and 355 stores now use a R407a refrigeration gas which has 50% less impact than conventional systems;
• The sourcing of renewable energy from small-scale hydro, wind and anaerobic digestion generators increased to over 50 gWhs, equivalent to 5% of M&S' total electricity usage;
• Last year operational waste was reduced by over a third compared to 08/09 figures and 94% of the remaining waste was recycled, including all unsold food;
• 39% of food waste went to Anaerobic Digestion to generate energy;
• 10 million Christmas Cards (up from eight million last year) were collected in stores for recycling in association with the Woodland Trust;
• Hit 2012 target to reduce packaging by over 25% a year early (excluding glass);
• 90% of the wild fish we sell now meets our sustainability standards;
• Launched 35 products made with certified sustainable palm oil and purchased Green Palm certificates to cover entire palm oil usage across M&S products in food and beauty;
• Banned a further 20 pesticides including paraquet;
• Increased the amount of recycled polyester used to 1,900 tonnes (equivalent to 47 million two-litre plastic bottles);
• Introduced calorie labelling in all store cafes.

Marks & Spencer (M&S)

More Marks & Spencer News... More Apparel/Garments News - United Kingdom...