Making a difference
Over the past three years, Marks & Spencer has made a significant difference to its communities:
- The company committed to securing work placements for people from key social groups. Over the last three years 2,280 people have been supported through work placements and 40% of these went on to secure employment with Marks & Spencer or someone else within 13 weeks. The Marks & Start programme has been externally recognised, for example through the Personnel Today Award for CSR and BITC’s Big Tick. It has also increased the diversity of the company’s workforce, with significantly more recruits from Marks & Start from minority ethnic groups compared to recruits overall.
- The company has also reduced food carrier bag usage by 80% by introducing charges for carrier bags. The money raised from these charges now stands at over £4 million, which has been donated to Groundwork UK to fund 100 Greener Living Spaces across the UK. This investment has engaged over 10,000 people to turn 200,000m2 of underused and derelict land into diverse and dynamic spaces for play, education, relaxation and fun.
Strategic approach
All of this activity is guided through Marks & Spencer’s sustainability strategy, Plan A. Under Plan A, the company has committed to helping customers and employees to make a difference to the social and environmental causes that matter to them. It also motivates employees through a range of employee involvement programmes that benefit charities with time and support and work at the heart of communities. These objectives support three key themes for the company:
- Health and wellbeing; particularly cancer
- Poverty and social exclusion
- The environment
Working in partnership
Fundamental to Marks & Spencer’s work in the community is the strength of its partnerships. The company has developed a number of strong and effective partnerships designed to support its key themes and activities, including Macmillan and Oxfam. Marks & Spencer’s approach to developing partnerships focuses on organisations that are experts in their field and can demonstrate the positive impact of their work. The company also seeks opportunities to develop and support the growth of the organisations that they work with. For example, Marks & Spencer’s have made in-store cafes available to support Macmillan’s ‘World’s Biggest Coffee Morning’, which raised over £400,000 in support of Macmillan in the first year, whilst driving footfall into Marks & Spencer’s cafes.
For more information on Marks and Spencer’s approach to community investment, please visit http://plana.marksandspencer.com/
