Environmental News - Marks & Spencer Powers Stores Using Food And Farm Waste
The renewable electricity is being provided through an anaerobic digester in Shropshire, which is taking household food waste and converting it into electricity. The site is the first of two anaerobic digesters to supply M&S. The other anaerobic digester will be located on a farm by Spring 2008 and will be fuelled by cow slurry and agricultural crops. Together, they will produce enough renewable electricity to power six M&S Simply Food stores.
M&S also announced that it is extending its carrier bag charging trial to a further 33 stores in the South West of England following a 16 week period of charging 5p for food bags in its Northern Ireland stores, which has seen a reduction in customer use of carrier bags by 66%.
These announcements form part of M&S’ update on Plan A. Launched in January, Plan A sets-out M&S’ 100 ‘eco-targets’ for the next five years, including aiming to become carbon neutral and send no waste to landfill.
Stuart Rose, Chief Executive, Marks & Spencer said:
“Plan A is driving change and innovation right across M&S. For example, we are now the first major retailer to use food waste to power some of our stores. Customers are also seeing more and more changes, including our new ‘eco’ stores, increased Fairtrade cotton ranges and more organic foods. We’re extending our carrier bag charging trial to over 30 stores. If this continues to encourage customers to use fewer bags, we expect to roll this out much further."
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