Green Business Awards 2010: Green Business of the Year
Winner - Marks and Spencer
On 15 January 2007, when Stuart Rose, the then chief executive of Marks & Spencer, unveiled the company's £200m plan to become carbon neutral by 2012, he said: 'We are calling this Plan A because there is no Plan B.'
The 100-point plan promised to make M&S's 700-plus UK shops carbon neutral by 2012 and embraced wide-ranging initiatives, from reducing the use of plastic bags and packaging to slashing the company's energy bills and making clothes from recycled bottles.
In 2010, M&S announced an extended Plan A with 80 new commitments to achieve by 2015 and the ultimate goal of becoming the world's most sustainable major retailer.