Sustainable supply chains: Marks & Spencer’s Plan A

"The Humble Truck". I'm sure many of you have now seen the Marks and Spencer's Plan A vehicle, running up and down the motorway. And on the side it says, "We reduced our fuel emissions." That's the lorry load of your mind. But actually when you talk to Marks and Spencer's, there's a real big saving here. They can carry 16% more load, a 10% fuel saving and, a 20% CO2 reduction. So, again here we see an environmental initiative, that has a real impact on the bottom line. But you can look at loads of improvements. If you talk to the Department of Transport, just simply training your drivers to drive better, can save you up to 7% on your fuel bill, more efficient tires, alternative fuels, just having the tires at the right pressure. Now if you add all that up, 10% fuel saving, 7% on driver behavior, maybe 10% on efficient tires, that's a big saving. For a lot of companies now, certainly haulage companies, whose margins are really tight, this is the difference between staying in business, and going out of business.

And of course now, there are some companies such as Mark's and Spencer's, who've built a whole brand strategy around sustainability. A systematic approach, driven at the top by Stuart Rose, five clear sustainability pillars, a 100-point action plan, across every part of their business, throughout the whole supply chain. A 200 million pound budget put aside, just for plan A. Now it's interesting, because if you talk to plan A now moving into their third year, it's not actually costing them, it's actually saving them money. And of course by building this brand strategy, they believe that that's going to give them clear competitive advantage, over their competitors in the future.