Marks & Spencer

Aim
Reducing carrier bag usage by 33% by 2010 including the launch of a ‘No to Bags’ campaign.

Progress Summary
In 2008 we reduced the use of free carrier bags in our UK stores by 408 million. We cut their use in our food sections by 83% by introducing a 5p charge to encourage people to reuse their carrier bags. The £1.2m profit from their sale was donated to environmental charity Groundwork to support funding for gardens, parks and play areas across the UK. We’ve also increased sales of our Bags for Life.

Aim
Reducing the weight of non-glass packaging by 25%.

Progress Summary
Since 2006 we have reduced non-glass packaging usage by an average of 12%. This is mainly because of reductions in packaging but is also partly due to a change in the types of products bought by our customers. Last year we ran 355 packaging reduction projects, including a redesign of our pizza packaging that resulted in an average weight reduction of nearly 500 tonnes. We saved a further 50 tonnes over the year by extending the use of new ‘skin pack’ meat packaging. This can also help to reduce food waste by keeping products fresher for longer. We reduced our 2009 Easter Egg packaging by an average of 30%, with the packaging for ‘Max the Bunny’ (one of the most popular items) reduced by 90% thanks to the use of a lightweight film bag rather than a plastic cylinder. In 2010 we plan to continue to make significant reductions to our use of non-glass food packaging.

Aim
Extending hanger recycling with a customer awareness campaign to build on the 50 million we currently recycle and reuse each year.

Progress Summary
In 2008 we increased the number of clothing hangers collected for reuse or recycling to around 125 million. We also reduced the range of hangers we use by around 50% to make reuse even easier.

Aim
Introducing a range of recycling services for our customers including a project for used clothing.

Progress Summary
In addition to coat hanger recycling and office based Food To Go packaging recycling we’ve also introduced:

• M&S and Oxfam Clothes Exchange: Following a successful six-month trial launched in January 2008, the M&S and Oxfam Clothes Exchange ran throughout 2008/09, nearly doubling the quantities of M&S clothing received by Oxfam to more than 1,500 tonnes. Over 875,000 M&S customers have participated, returning around 3.2 million garments. The Exchange has raised around £1.9m for Oxfam. We aim to extend it to include soft furnishings in the upcoming year.
• Christmas cards: In January 2009 we ran a Christmas card recycling scheme with the Woodland Trust. Thanks to our customers, we increased the weight of cards collected to 175 tonnes - equivalent to nearly 9 million cards.

Aim
Aiming to ensure that M&S operations in the UK and Republic of Ireland send no waste to landfill.

Progress Summary
Last year we re-tendered our waste contracts to create a single, better co-ordinated recycling scheme. This scheme includes a plan to achieve our ambition of zero waste to landfill between 2009 and 2012. This year’s data has been calculated using more accurate store bin weight measurements and as a result we have used this figure as a new baseline. We produced around 116,000 tonnes of waste in our stores, offices and warehouses, recycled around 47,000 tonnes (41%) and sent 69,000 tonnes to landfill. We will continue to work with our contractors to improve this data.