UK’s Marks & Spencer has announced its first £850 million revolving credit facility, directly linked to the delivery of net-zero targets. M&S has reset its Plan A sustainability program, with a singular focus on becoming a net-zero Scope 3 business across its entire supply chain and products by 2040. The retailer has set out a detailed roadmap to net-zero using science-based targets aligned to the UN ambition of limiting global warming to 1.5c. The ambitious target would see M&S achieve full net-zero ten years ahead of the government’s UK-wide strategy and require rapid decarbonization of its business to cut its carbon footprint by a third by 2025, from a 5.7million tonne 2017 baseline.
Marks and Spencer Group plc is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in London, England, specializing in selling clothing, home products, and food products. M&S has introduced three key colleague initiatives as part of its roadmap to net zero. Firstly, M&S has identified 100 colleagues as ‘Carbon Champions’ across key buying, sourcing, and operations roles to drive net-zero delivery. Secondly, the retailer is developing a program of learning to grow carbon literacy and equip its colleagues with the understanding to identify carbon-related risks and opportunities.
James Rudolph, M&S group treasurer and colleague carbon champion said,” Our champion roles span buying and design through to HR and central operations as we seek to build the carbon literacy of colleagues across M&S and drive change in our everyday ways of working. Sustainability decisions are now business decisions, and we need to be equipped to identify the carbon-related risks and opportunities that lie ahead. The investment community is already highly attuned to the long-term risks climate change poses to the economy. In my carbon champion role, it means understanding how treasury and the wider finance function can support the net-zero transition, as well as maximizing the benefits sustainable finance can bring to M&S.”
