Marks & Spencer (M&S) has announced that it has become the UK’s first major carbon neutral retailer.

The ‘2012 How We Do Business Report’, released 7 June, assesses the progress of M&S’s sustainability programme, Plan A, and shows that the British company’s shops, offices, warehouses and delivery fleets are all carbon neutral and that all of M&S waste is 100 per cent recycled.

“M&S greenhouse gas emissions are down by 22 per cent or 158,000 tonnes CO2e since 2007, despite the company growing sales space by 18 per cent over the same period,” a spokesperson from M&S told Resource. “On recycling we’ve made huge strides forward, the most notable of which is that we now recycle 100 per cent of our waste, nothing goes to landfill.”

The report reveals that M&S reduced the waste it generated by 31 per cent (80,000 tonnes), as well as recycling all the waste it produced. A reported 89 per cent of M&S food waste is sent to anaerobic digestion plants to be turned to electricity, which M&S buys back to power its stores. Some waste products, such as plastic packaging and cardboard waste, are recycled in a closed loop to produce carrier bags and cardboard boxes for the company.

Marc Bolland, Chief Executive of M&S said: “I am proud of what we've achieved. We now have a better, greener and more ethical Marks & Spencer… We remain as committed to Plan A as we have ever been. It is an essential part of our DNA and fundamental to our plans to become an international, multi-channel retailer.”

Plan A was launched in 2007 and set out 100 environmental commitments in order to make the company more sustainable, with a further 80 targets added in 2010. An M&S spokesperson added: “Plan A is an integral part of our business, because we believe it is the right thing to do. It’s the right thing for our business, the right thing for our customers, stakeholders and employees and it’s the right thing to do for the planet.”

In this most recent report, 138 targets have been reported as ‘achieved’, 30 are ‘on plan', six are ‘behind plan' and six have not been achieved. The six not achieved include:

1. 84 per cent of wood used in M&S businesses is from Forest Stewardship Council sources (100 per cent target not reached)

2. The Bio-Diesel commitment was dropped due to concerns over the sustainability of crops used to make the fuel

3. Water usage was reduced by 18 per cent (20 per cent target not reached)

4. Sales of organic foods in M&S food halls have declined

5. Plans to convert 20 million clothing garments to Fairtrade cotton were missed due to ‘difficulties with availability and the complexity and length of the cotton supply’

6. Fresh turkey, geese, pork and duck products have not all been switched to free range as trials proved unsuccessful and customer demand asked the chain to stock higher welfare turkey alongside free range.

M&S will continue with Plan A in order to achieve further targets. This includes 50 per cent of M&S products having sustainable or ‘Plan A qualities’, such as being free range, made at an eco factory or made from recycled material by 2015, increasing to 100 per cent by 2020. Currently 31 per cent of the three billion products M&S produces each year have at least one sustainable attribute. M&S also aims to reduce water consumption by 25 per cent (of 2006/2007 figures) by 2015.

The most recent Plan A initiative announced by M&S was in April 2012 as the Shwopping campaign was unveiled. Fronted by British actress Joanna Lumley, shoppers are encouraged to recycle their old clothes, with the hope of eventually seeing a piece of clothing ‘shwopped’ or recycled for every piece bought.

“We get 21 million people through our doors every week and if each time they came in they brought just one item of clothing [to recycle] that would add up to over 350 million garments a year. It’s a huge, bold target but one we believe we can achieve with the help of our customers”, an M&S spokesperson told Resource.

M&S has also announced that it is looking to up their green credentials by adopting the electronic duty of care. Under UK legislation, all companies must have a duty of care to ensure their waste is disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner and keep paper Waste Transfer Notes (WTN) as proof of this. By switching to electronic WTNs, it is estimated that the UK could save 50 million pieces of paper being used.

The full 2012 report is available on the Marks & Spencer website.