What emerged was “Plan A.” Announced in January of 2007, it’s become something of a pet project for the charismatic retail boss, not to mention the newest standard by which every other corporate sustainability program will be judged in the future. The plan has 100 “points,” or individual initiatives, each designed to tackle a different challenge in making M&S more eco-friendly. It’s a massive undertaking that, if all goes according to plan, will drastically reduce the company’s energy use, send zero waste to landfills, bring all raw materials in from the most sustainable sources possible, enforce CSR among suppliers, help employees and customers choose a healthier lifestyle and pretty much make Marks & Spencer a role-model company.

But don’t be fooled; Plan A is more than just a personal philosophy that a CEO forced onto his company (by all accounts CSR is, in fact, a personal philosophy of Mr. Rose). It’s a business decision.

“No one had announced a big initiative up until then, and we wanted to be the first,” Rose said in an interviewwith the UK’s Guardian. “We were the first out of the pack. I’m not crowing, but it’s important. It does, I’m not going to deny, if you get it right, give you a competitive advantage.”

What is Plan A?

All 100 points are scheduled to be accomplished by 2012, and over this fiveyear span, Plan A is expected to cost a whopping £200 million in operational costs alone—that figure doesn’t take into account the price of extensive marketing. On top of that, the hefty tag comes at a time when the British retail industry is recovering from its worst holiday season in years. M&S stock value, hovering around the low $600s for most of November 2007, has since dropped roughly 40 percent, fighting just to stay in the $400 range.

An even greater financial burden comes courtesy of Rose’s insistence that in-store prices will not go up. In a BBC interview, an announcer reads one woman’s fear of hiking prices. Rose quickly and pointedly refutes the idea of raising prices and offers to personally give the apprehensive customer a tour of any of his stores to prove that costs have not gone up. It is worth noting, however, that company bosses haven’t eliminated the idea of a price hike should consumers show interest in spending more to help save the environment. M&S is a business, after all, and their well-being is based on shareholder profits. And yet, despite the financial hurdles, the plan remains a high priority within the company.

Plan A Report

So is the price worth it? Absolutely. In January this year—the one-year anniversary of the program’s launch— M&S released a report on the success of Plan A, and quite simply, the progress is overwhelming.

The plan is broken down into five “pillars”: climate change, waste, sustainable raw materials, fair partner and health. The advancements that M&S has already made in climate change alone are enough to put nearly every other company’s entire CSR program to shame. For instance, 55,000 tons of carbon dioxide have already been eliminated from the company’s annual emissions. The key word here is “eliminated.” M&S doesn’t want to just offset their carbon waste like many other companies, but rather to minimize energy use through the use of renewable materials. Offsetting is a last resort.

Some of the first year’s progress was made quite easily. M&S gave out 37 million fewer bags in the UK last year simply by asking, “Do you need a carrier?” In Ireland, the company created a little more incentive by charging customers five pence for each bag. That reduced the amount of bags handed out in the country—and the waste associated with it—by 66 percent. The money raised from that endeavor was given to Groundwork, a charity that invests in local environmental projects. A similar venture has begun in southwest England and, if successful there, will be rolled out in all of M&S’ UK stores.

Other initiatives were more complicated. Three new M&S “eco-stores” were built in 2007 as trials to help the company learn how to ensure each new store is as sustainable as possible. Based on the research the company conducted through these green stores, M&S is creating a “Sustainable Construction Manual.” This guide will influence initial store designs and the selection of construction materials when building new stores and offices.

Plan A also covers fair trade items extensively—an issue that the UK has tended to focus on more than most other countries. M&S purchased about a third of the world’s fair trade cotton and a large percentage of the UK fruit crop for their stores.

In a sign that Plan A is a living, breathing, adaptable program, M&S adjusts its initiatives when it becomes clear that something isn’t working. The company was initially planning on usingbiofuels, but learned during 2007 that using them would likely create loss of habitats, among other issues. As a result, M&S has indefinitely stopped using biofuels until sustainable sources are discovered.

Not all the advertised accomplishments are incredibly remarkable. In order to cut down on CO2 emissions, M&S tightened the requirements for obtaining a companycar. These measures have dropped the corporate auto fleet from 488 to 469—not a very significant change. Compared to the other achievements, this one probably should have been left out of the spotlight.

What is remarkable is that every conceivable area of M&S business is working to become more environmentally friendly. However, for a company as large and renowned as M&S, the meager two partners listed on its website for Plan A shows some hesitation for other organizations to jump on board. Perhaps it’s because M&S made itself the guinea pig. It’s spending money while others get a free lesson, pausing on the sidelines to observe, at the cost of their competitor, what happens when you drastically change your business model into something much more sustainable (at least as far as the environment is concerned; that remains to be seen in terms of M&S’ bottom line).

The Plan’s Weak Point

There is one major vulnerability to the Plan A strategy: apathetic customers. The two overarching goals that Rose would like to see happen with Plan A—to save the planet and make M&S a lot of money— both require British shoppers to buy into the whole thing.

On the “save the planet” side, M&S placed labels on all products to relay to customers whether the item was shipped by air. Then, consumers make the decision of whether or not they’ll buy it. Rose, of course, hopes that they don’t, but isn’t prepared to drop all non-air freighted items from his store. At the moment, that would be business suicide.

On the “make M&S a lot of money” side of things, customers have to conscientiously decide that they care about the environment enough to avoid shopping at stores like Tesco for groceries or H&M for discounted clothes. M&S is generally more expensive than both of these options. Though M&S insists prices won’t go up, customers are being asked to make a concerted effort to pay already higher prices to help the environment. That’s a tough sell, and a glaring potential threat to the Plan A business model.

How is the Company Doing?

One thing that shouldn’t be underestimated is British loyalty to deeply entrenched UK brand names. M&S, which just so happens to be one of those “very British” brands, proudly says that it has already convinced over 30 percent of customers to save energy by washing laundry at 30 degrees Celsius, opposed to 40C or above (compared with 23 percent when the campaign was first launched). The company also has had growing success with its online “carbon calculator,” a website that invites customers to fill out a brief survey in order to calculate their individual carbon footprint.

Things get a little trickier when it comes to the company’s financial progress. From January to May of 2007, the first five months after the program’s launch, M&S stock value was at a five-year high. Since then, it’s been steadily dropping. Financial analysts, however, aren’t too concerned.

“I think if you were to look at just about any British retailer, you would see its stock going down,” says Mark Weber, equity analyst for Morningstar in the UK. “It’s a tough regional environment, along the lines of what you’re seeing in the U.S. That’s fairly heavily indebted consumers who are kind of tapped out, and the economy is slowing down so retailers are taking a hit.”

The company echoes Weber’s opinion. “The last 12 months have been challenging on the High Street and consumer outlook is likely to remain tough for 2008,” says Mike Barry, head of Corporate Social Responsibility for Marks & Spencer. “Despite this, we’ve made good progress in implementing Plan A.”

Though expensive, Plan A likely hasn’t been a major cause to the company’s financial woes. “I wouldn’t say that the stock prices going down has anything to do with the money they’re investing in Plan A,” Weber insists.

Whatever the cause of the lagging revenue, it remains very impressive that the company maintains its commitment to this plan amid a less-than-appealing financial outlook.

What’s to Come

The company’s goals for the future are pretty ambitious. For instance, some stores and companies put carbon labels on their products—labels similar to nutrition labels, only instead of health information, carbon labels display the amount of CO2 emitted to create the product. M&S doesn’t want to do that. Instead,the company is partnering with The Carbon Trust to “explore the feasibility of developing a national scheme for the carbon labeling of consumer products.” Rose doesn’t want to just improve his own company’s sustainability through this plan, he wants to revolutionize the country. The company admits it will likely take years and heavy government cooperation to implement a program of this magnitude, but still maintains its importance.

Rose wants to defy nature as well, going so far as to pour money into programs designed to prolong the growing season of UK agriculture, thus decreasing the emissions of transporting food from overseas. This has raised eyebrows among international suppliers who will see revenues drop when they lose business to their British counterparts, but Rose feels the decreased CO2 emissions are important.

What’s the Result?

Will Rose’s strategy beat out M&S’ British competitors in the retail industry? Unfortunately, after just one year, it’s still too early to tell. In the end, what makes Plan A more unique than other corporate CSR programs is that M&S isn’t the market leader in its industry (it’s not a chump among its peers by any stretch, but it is being outpaced in the market by Tesco, Next and Asda). And yet, the company still gives a high priority to this phenomenally expensive corporate social responsibility program. Even more unique is that the expenses are not solely for publicity. M&S is doing this because Plan A is Rose’s business plan. He wants to use it to gain the market edge, and that’s going to take a lot. Plan A targets an entire country because it will take the whole country to make this plan successful, create a sustainable Britain and, most relevantly, propel M&S to the top.

More Info

For further information on the plan, including the entire 100 point list, take a look at Marks & Spencer’s Plan A website: http://plana.marksandspencer.com.