M&S updates Plan A progress

The latest Plan A update includes news that the first two ‘Ethical Excellence’ factories have been announced; the first overseas sustainability store is to open in India; and water saving technology has been installed in 300 stores.

M&S has awarded its first two factory ‘Ethical Excellence’ awards – a denim factory in Bangladesh and a woven fabrics unit in Indonesia, recognising the sites’ working conditions, better productivity, excellent industrial relations, a developed education and training programme and pay which is said to be amongst the best salaries in the industry. Products made at these factories now carry a Plan A Attribute, which means large volumes of jeans and women’s clothing will become Plan A products when they hit stores next year.

Elsewhere. M&S’ first overseas sustainable learning store opened this month in Bangalore, India. The 20,000 sq ft clothing, home and gifts store features energy efficient lighting (uses 15% less energy), energy efficient air conditioning and water saving technology with high levels of construction waste recycled.

The store is aiming for a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – the US Building Green Council’s environmental rating system) rating of Silver and is one of the few retail outlets in India that has applied for a LEED rating.

The past six months also included the third, and most successful, One Day Wardrobe Clearout with M&S customers donating over 400,000 used and unwanted items of clothing to Oxfam at M&S stores up and down the country. It took the total number of items of clothing donated to the M&S Oxfam Clothes Exchange to over 10 million, which is worth an estimated £8 million to Oxfam, helping the charity fund vital work in the UK and abroad and encouraging customers into stores.

April also saw M&S launch the world’s first carbon neutral lingerie with sales reaching 130,000  carbon neutral bras and pairs of knickers.

There was also a deal with supply chain traceability specialist Historic Futures that will give M&S full “raw material to store” traceability on every single clothing and home product it sells. Historic Futures will work with M&S to phase in the use of its traceability service ‘String’, making it possible for M&S to collect information from the extended supply-chain, describing where and how every product is made, including the source of the raw materials such as cotton and wool. The system is already being used by the M&S kidswear team and will be rolled out to all other departments by 2015.