Rose: The man with the plan

As Sir Stuart Rose started his chosen read on a summer holiday five years ago, who would have envisaged that one book would revolutionise the way Marks & Spencer does business? Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth made the M&S chief executive sit up on his sun lounger and think.

When he got back to home turf, Rose planned something a bit like an M&S school cinema trip, with 100 colleagues taken to watch Gore’s film about the perils of global warming. And that day at Mayfair’s Curzon Cinema kick-started what is widely considered to be among the most comprehensive CSR strategies in the world.

He wasted no time in setting the M&S team to task. As the country crawled back to work in early January 2007, M&S drew back the curtains on its new year resolution. It was called Plan A. The 100-point, five-year plan to become a sustainable, carbon neutral, zero-waste-to-landfill, ethical trading business was a bold move, and an expensive one.

The estimated cost over five years was £200m. Not to worry, said Rose - or words to that effect - being green can be profitable. As director of Plan A Richard Gillies says: “Stuart was the one behind it all saying that a sustainable business will be a profitable business.” It was a brave statement that turned out to be bang on the money. By year two it was cost neutral, by year three it was cost positive, generating a £50m surplus for the business.

Embracing change

When it launched, everyone applauded. The government, the public, environmental charities… even ardent environmentalist Jonathon Porritt lauded it as a “sustainable benchmark for the retail world”. M&S’s workforce embraced it too. Gillies says: “It’s changed the values of the organisation. It’s changed the paradigm of CSR from being something that sits on the side of the business to becoming an integral part of that business.”

Listing all of Plan A’s achievements could fill two pages in itself (see box, left). Since 2007, M&S has cut carbon emissions from its operations by 8%, improved store energy efficiency by 19%, reduced the amount of waste sent to landfill by 33% and used 400 million fewer carrier bags than in 2006/2007. It has also generated new business models. Its M&S Energy business, for instance, supplies electricity and gas to domestic customers and rewards them with M&S store vouchers for reducing their energy usage.

CSR expert Nicky Amos notes that one of the most groundbreaking aspects of Plan A is that it seeks to achieve its vision with the help of others - be it customers, suppliers or campaign partners - each with mutually beneficial outcomes. It’s not just about the M&S business, it’s about everyone connected to the M&S business and how it can help them be more environmentally responsible, too.

Oxfam trading director David McCullough, who works extensively with the retailer, says: “What was very clear from the beginning was that this wasn’t just about how it behaved inside head office, but about how it played out in the wider community.”

But Plan A hasn’t been about never-ending plaudits. M&S openly admits it has struggled in certain areas. One is the use of 50% bio-diesel in its lorries by 2012 - currently on hold. Another is onsite renewables - made difficult in part because much of its estate is in city centres with relatively small ceiling spaces. It also admits that despite a ‘green’ travel policy,

its business travel emissions continue to rise. Furthermore, the Government has changed the rules for reporting renewable electricity so it is struggling to meet its commitment to have carbon neutral operations by 2012. But as

Gillies points out: “There are always going to be bumps in the road when you bring together a plan of this magnitude. It’s been challenging, but there are no gaping holes that we hadn’t thought about.”

Taking the lead

What’s more, it has set the bar high for other businesses. Major corporations have to be seen to be working to similarly tough goals or risk the PR backlash of looking like CSR lightweights.

Gillies says: “Lots of other businesses have responded to what we’re doing, and not just retailers. We know Walmart used at least some of our work to inform its [CSR] plan, as have Unilever and Procter & Gamble.

It sweeps across the business spectrum and we’re very often asked to share our learning with other companies.”

The initial commitments in the 100-point plan to be achieved by 2012 have been extended to 180 commitments to be achieved by 2015. Plan A is here to stay. Rose may not have sat down and scribbled every single point - nor would he claim to have - but there is no doubt that he was central to its implementation. Gillies says: “It wouldn’t have happened without him.”

McCullough says: “He has very clearly been seen to drive the agenda.

He didn’t just park it in the CSR department, he has a genuine, deep commitment to it.” Amos says Plan A has become “an iconic symbol of a company prepared to put ethics and responsibility at the core of its business proposition”.

Ultimately, Plan A reflects Rose’s business acumen. He was at M&S to make it money, not hug trees. But by having utmost faith in his convictions he changed consumers’ expectations of what a responsible retailer looked like. And at the same time, he proved that a more ethically and morally responsible business can be a richer one too.