Stories from the sustainability frontline

Two enemies on either side of a divide that can’t bear the sight of each other: they fight, they are thrown together, they talk it out, they fall in love, and they live happily ever after. Yes, this is indeed the plot of many of my favorite Hollywood romcoms but it’s also, according to Mike Barry, Head of Sustainability at Marks & Spencer, how the relationship between businesses and environmental NGOs has evolved over recent years. From adversaries to partnership, a sustainability happy ending.

This was just one of the many stories and insights that Mike shared with a group of our partners over a breakfast that Forum co-hosted with Brunswick Group in New York on Wednesday 5th October, as he talked candidly about lessons learnt from delivering Plan A and the journey to becoming the world’s most sustainable retailer. A journey which Mike says “is only 10% done, even though we’ve hit almost all of our targets”. The next 90% is about rethinking business models and answering the challenge of how any business is going to be successful in ten years’ time against a backdrop of price volatility, increasing labour costs, and the resource crunch we know we’re facing.

Another key takeaway was his switch as a sustainability director from asking other directors what they’d done to help deliver Plan A, to asking them how Plan A can help meet their most pressing problems. How can sustainability help them differentiate products, or deliver a lower cost base? It’s this attitude that has helped M&S realize $100m in savings which they’ve been able to reinvest as a sustainability war-chest, with about 50% of that going into price. “We don’t believe in green premiums”, Mike said, “so if a better product costs more then we need to fund that through energy savings elsewhere in the business”.

Not all business breakfasts get onto the topic of underwear, but this one did. Mike shared a lesson about tackling sustainability on a product-by-product or brand-by-brand basis, and not trying to do everything for all products at first, but instead trying to understand what the right sustainability ‘hotspot’ is for that particular product. So when he found out that the lingerie team had gone through a carbon reduction exercise he was bemused as he couldn’t see why they’d picked that part of Plan A to focus on. But working with the lingerie team the Plan A group helped them take the next step to push it all the way to carbon neutrality. When they added that label, the bra moved from being their 16th best-seller to the 1st.  This suggests that although customers might not be looking for a carbon neutral bra, if they find a good product at the right price the ethical label can sway their choice.

It’s this shift from CSR – which Mike describes as “being less bad, and reactively managing one risk at a time” – to a holistic approach to mainstreaming sustainability right across the company and finding how it unlocks value that gets us at Forum excited. And hearing success stories from one of the leading sustainability practitioners was a great start to the day.