The Green Economy in Bristol and the West of ... - Miguel Mendonça

Annex A
Other green economy aspects
As the definitions section suggests, the low carbon,
green economy has many faces. It is not just
renewables and energy efficiency. It is about using
resources more wisely, it is about reuse, repurposing,
recycling, and the creation or improvement of
materials, products and processes. It is almost
Greening Retail: Marks and Spencer Plan A
The UK economy is dominated by the service sector,
estimated at over 77% in 2010. Within this, retail
plays a major part. Of the UK’s retailers, Marks and
Spencer is commonly considered to be a retailer that
truly ‘gets it’, on the subject of greening their
offerings and operations. In 2007 they launched a
programme called ‘Plan A’, for a number of stated
reasons: “to embed the sustainable management of
relationships and resources across our operations
and beyond, thereby driving cost savings,
accelerating innovation, and safeguarding the future
of our supplier, employee and customer bases.” 78
Plan A has the guiding vision of making the company
the world’s most sustainable retailer. This is built
upon seven pillars: Climate Change, Waste, Natural
Resources, Fair Partner, Wellbeing, How We Do
Business (embedding Plan A in systems and
processes) and Involving our Customers. There are
180 commitments relating to material impacts, and
ambitions regarding going carbon neutral, sending
Selling services, not products
Again on the subject of retail, the government’s
Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP)
has called for £180 billion per year of household
spending to shift from buying to hiring items, and
estimate that 90% of the tool market could make this
switch by 2050. Several dedicated websites have
emerged which facilitate this approach, including
Ecomodo, Zilok and Rentmyitems. The term
‘rentrepreneur’ has been coined for people hiring
certainly about changing mindsets, and arguably,
perhaps the logic and nature of the macro economic
system itself. Beyond the environmental technologies
sector, and other green goods and services, there are
many other pertinent approaches and activities
taking shape locally and at the national level.
zero waste to landfill and paying factory workers a
fair living wage. Reported benefits include £70m of
cost savings in 2010/11, which they have reinvested
internally towards increased resilience. Notable cobenefits
include improved staff motivation, increased
supply chain resilience and anticipation of changing
risk and regulation.
The company has chosen to open up potential for
new markets in a number of areas by supporting
innovation projects in energy efficiency, water
consumption, dual fuel vehicles, sustainable textile
fabrics, reducing food waste, lower­fat dairy
products, sustainable farming and moving freight to
rail. They are further committing to a target of
making all their products tick at least one Plan A box
by 2020, for example Fairtrade, organic or free
range. The purpose is to influence the whole retail
value chain, from suppliers to customers. 79
their household items, or even their house and car, to
locals, tourists or visiting business people. The DIY
chain B&Q is examining the potential to move to a
hiring model. Research shows that many household
tools have a very short working life, with the average
power drill being used for just 15 minutes in its life. 80
Dow Chemical has explored this approach in its
SafeChem business, where they sell a cleaning
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