Last class, Tamar showed us the video of M&A’s (Marks & Spencer) Plan A, I’m highly interested in what they are doing for pursuing their sustainable goals by their video literally. Therefore, i checked it out their website of Plan A, and i found some interesting points which could be linked to the content of the class.
- Not only focus on their sustainable products, but also their customers: In their Plan A 2020, they are trying to inspire and engage their customers to participate into Plan A with their great products and services in order to change customers’ behaviour. Different from other retailers who mainly focus on providing sustainable products, M&S has mutual communication channels with their customers. For example, My Plan A which engages one million customers in Plan A program by using various online channels is designed to create a plan to help customers live more sustainably and healthy. Besides, M&S could use My Plan A to educate their customers to influence their consumption process before purchase such as info search and evaluation of alternatives.
- To increase shared value by Plan A and develop new business model: In Plan A, they are also concerned about carbon footprint, sea life and beaches, and clothing recycling to maximise the shared value they could make for society and environment. For instance, M&S is using shwopping to reduce the number of clothes sent to landfill and creating benefit for customers, society and environment at the same time. Customers are able to consume their used clothes in a more sustainable way instead of throwing away. For M&S, they could resell these use clothes or reused them into other new fabric without generating extra amount of landfill. Overall, in five to ten years, i believe they could achieve and develop a new sustainable business model which is carbon positives and waste neutral for protecting our planet.
References:
http://planareport.marksandspencer.com/downloads/M&S-PlanA-2014.pdf
http://corporate.marksandspencer.com/plan-a/about-plan-a
Hey Paul,
Awesome post of Marks&Spencer. Having grown up in the Philippines where Marks&Spencer is one of the staple department stores, I was surprised to see their commitment to sustainability. Quite frankly, they never came off to me as that type of company. As you mentioned, this campaign is actually targeting customers, not suppliers the way a company like Whole Foods would. I wonder if this is an operation that is only being rolled out in Europe or worldwide. Regardless of that, this unique approach where they try to get customers to make a pull rather than push green products down to them is really interesting. In class, we talked about how what if one day, all the products on shelves are sustainable? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Should consumers have a choice? It looks like Marks&Spencers has an answer to that question. What are your thoughts on why this might be the case? All in all, great post and thanks for going deeper into this initiative.
Cheers,
Coby
Hey Paul,
While watching the video for Marks & Spencer’s during the lecture, I was very interested for it, too. Thank you for your extra research and posting. It is interesting to see how Marks & Spencer tries actually change consumer behaviours to be sustainable, while many other retailers are only providing them with sustainable products. However, although it’s such a great approach, I wonder specifically how they are planning to do so. M&S also talked about educating the consumers, and again wonder how it works. I liked the idea of reselling used clothings, as it will definitely reduce the landfill and be carbon positive. It will be great if they not only resell the used clothings but bring more engagement towards recycling and somewhat tie the premium image Marks & Spencer has with reselling the used clothing. I will also look forward to see how Marks & Spencer process their green approaches further.
Great job!
Sujin
Can someone recommend Eco-concious Swimwear? Cheers xx