Marks & Spencer

Plan A

• Online Shopping
• Store Finder

• Climate change
  • Stories
  • Progress so far
  • Plan A way to save
• Waste
• Sustainable raw materials
• Fair partner
• Health

Now we’re starting the next stage of our Plan A journey, reaching further and being even bolder, we’re setting ourselves an ambitious goal – to become the world’s most sustainable major retailer by 2015.

By extending Plan A we will make a far greater positive impact on the environment, our customers’ lives and the communities in which we operate. We believe it will also make us a stronger and more successful business. We are now setting new tougher commitments stretching to 2015 across the five pillars – Climate change, Waste, Natural resource, Fair partnership and Health & wellbeing. In total we are adding 80 new commitments to the original 100 launched three years ago and extending a number of the existing commitments.

Two of our most important new commitments are:
• Involve all of our customers in Plan A
We aim to engage all of our 21 million customers in Plan A, helping them to live more sustainably. Our new commitments will mean Plan A is built into every one of the 2.7 billion individual Marks & Spencer products our customers buy from us every year. We also aim to help 3 million of them develop their own personal Plan A by 2020.

• Making Plan A “how we do business”
We want to accelerate moves to make Plan A ‘how we do business’ – that is, making it part of the Marks & Spencer DNA. To support this aim, we’re going to launch a 5-year, £50 million Plan A innovation fund to support new ideas in our business. We’ll help our suppliers create 200 Plan A factories and encourage 10,000 farmers join our Sustainable Agriculture Programme.
 

Our people are key to making Plan A how we do business. We want to involve all of our employees in Plan A and help them share information about doing this with family, friends and M&S customers. We’ll offer all our eligible employees free home insulation and a home energy monitor as well as giving them one paid day’s leave every year to do volunteer work in the communities where they and our customer’s live.

We’ll continue to work in partnership with suppliers, NGOs, the science community, governments and other businesses, to deliver the innovation and changes needed to make sustainability a reality.

We recognise that building a sustainable business is a long journey and we look forward to your help and support in doing the right thing. To find out more about our plans and how you can play a part download our report here.