Marks and Spencer 2010 Annual Report Download - page 40

Marks and Spencer Group plc Annual report and financial statements 2010 Directors’ report 36
How we do business
Plan A
Over the past three years Plan A has helped
us improve our environmental performance,
develop more sustainable products and
services and improve the lives of people in
communities where we trade. As well as
being the right thing to do, it’s also been
good for business and over the past year
alone Plan A generated £50m additional
profit, which we invested back into the
business.
In 2009/10, Plan A highlights:
a reduction in CO2 emissions of
50,000 tonnes;
1.8 million used clothing garments recycled
via Oxfam;
20,000 tonnes of waste diverted
from landfill;
a reduction in 400 million food carrier bags
being used by our customers;
130 million clothing hangers recycled
or reused;
£13.2m invested in community
programmes;
launch of new products and services,
including 300,000 customers from
M&S Energy;
certified to the Carbon Trust Standard; and
awarded Platinum status in the Business
in the Community Corporate Responsibility
Index.
Climate change
We’re determined to play our part to help
tackle climate change and we remain
committed to making our UK and ROI
operations carbon neutral by 2012.
We’ve cut our carbon emissions by 8%,
equivalent to 20% per sq ft by improving our
energy efficiency and reducing emissions
from our store refrigeration systems.
Our improvements in energy efficiency were
achieved by rolling out the lessons learned
at our five energy efficiency stores to other
stores. This will help us improve on this
figure in future. Additionally the efficiency of
our General Merchandise delivery fleets has
improved by 30%.
To help our customers reduce their
carbon footprint we’ve continued to extend
our range of energy efficient electrical
products and developed M&S Energy which
is now helping 300,000 customers cut their
energy use.
By 2015 we’ve committed to reduce
our energy use by 35% per sq ft, help our
suppliers significantly reduced environmental
impact and broaden our action on climate
change to include more ways to get our
customers and employees involved.
Plan A is our five year eco and ethical plan which we launched in 2007. We have
already achieved 62 of our original 100 commitments and are on track to meet a
further 30, leaving only eight commitments where we face additional challenges.
Our success gave us the confidence to extend Plan A in 2010, adding 80 new
commitments and extending existing commitments further. The new plan
involves all our customers and employees and sets ourselves the ambitious
goal of becoming the world’s most sustainable major retailer by 2015.
INNOVATION
Carrier bag use in 2009/10
400 million reduction
Visit the Plan A website at
marksandspencer.com/ plana
New commitments added in 2009/10
80
Total commitments
1 8 0
Number of original 100 commitments
achieved so far
62
TRUST
Above: Digging Deep Working with environmental
charity Groundwork we developed a wildlife habitat
at Paddington Recreation Ground in London.
The money was raised from profits from our 5p
carrier bag charge and the project transformed an
under-used area of the park into wetland meadow,
making it a great educational destination for local
children. This is one of 79 Greener Living Spaces
created as a result of the charge.
TRUST
Above: Find out more our performance in our
full How We Do Business Report 2010 at
corporate.marksandspencer.com/
howwedobusiness
Ho w W e D o Bu s i n e s s R e p o r t 20 1 0
Quality, Value, Service, Innovation and Trust
ma r k s a n d s p e n c e r . c o m / h w d b r e p o r t 2 0 1 0