M&S' Helene Roberts on packaging, recycling and partnerships

Louise Bateman

25th February 2010

Helene Roberts, head of Packaging, Food Divison, at M&S, talks to Louise Bateman about how some unique public private partnerships are enabling it to extend the retailer's 'closed loop' recycling.

Q. You’ve just announced innovative partnerships with four local authorities across the UK in a bid to secure more food packaging waste to recycle for your own use. How significant are these deals for M&S packaging and its ‘Plan A’ eco programme – and for recycling in the UK?

A. I think this is what Plan A should be about – working with partners. We can’t solve everything on our own and often have to work with partners outside to drive up sustainability.

For us the journey in packaging has been about reduction and driving up recyclability and the reason why this is so important to our business is that instead of saying this is not our problem, we are committed to working with other partners to solve the problem of recycling.

Plan A is a platform for doing the right thing. This is about doing what is right to meet future needs of our business. And more broadly, there is no reason why we can’t recycle more in the UK.

Q. Whose idea was this and when did discussions start with the councils? How long has it taken to work out the partnerships?

A. The idea was ours, but it was born out of lots of conversations with different councils. The last two years we have spent travelling to different local authorities to find out different issues that affect them. The idea was born following those meetings; it led us to thinking internally – how do we use Plan A as a platform to innovate?

Q. ‘Closed loop’ recycling means waste material used in the manufacturing process is returned back to that same process for reuse. Can you explain the part ‘closed loop’ plays in M&S’ recycling strategy?

A. Closed loop is about making efficiencies in your manufacturing process and any waste you create is fed back in. It makes good business sense – and we’ve extended that ‘closed loop’ with these partnerships. We’ve said here is a bottle we’ve used to package a food item – how do we get it back into our business and reuse it?

We reuse 60,000 tonnes of packaging per year, and we’ve said now lets work with partners to collect that packaging, so we are closing that loop.

Q. You say you are going to invest £1.25 million over five years in your partnership with Somerset County Council. Overall, what do you expect to be investing in this scheme? What will the councils be investing?

A. In terms of overall investment, it is too early to share that information. We are going to work with Somerset, then with Kent, and see how that looks before we commit our partners and ourselves.

But Somerset is investing a huge amount. The council has a good track record and good participation rate from its residents, but it wants to extend the materials collected. This scheme will enable that to happen. It will enable plastics and cardboard to be collected.

Q. You will be recycling much more packaging waste than you will be reusing – you say 45,000 tonnes will be resold to other producers. Do you know who those producers are likely to be and have you had discussions with any of them?

A. We are at initial stages at the moment and we’ve not had those discussions yet, but we are talking about producers in the food processing industry. We want to drive up recycling so that recycled material could end up in someone else’s packaging.

Q. Do you expect this new venture will pay for itself, or indeed become profitable for M&S?

A. That is the ideal – yes there is a cost to the business initially and we will support it to deliver it. But as we go forward we would like it to be commercially viable. But this is a long-term project.

Q. As a private company, how difficult have you found it to work with local authorities and what challenges have these public/private partnerships thrown up?

A. Not difficult – it’s been a huge learning curve for us understanding what local authorities face, the pressures they are working under. The timesales are different, but we've not had any challenges that have been blockers. We are all aligned.

Q. How will the partnerships work in practice?

A. We could just chuck money at it and get on with it, but this is not what this about at all and we are truly working in partnership. We are very clear about our common goal – and we are also working very closely about providing traceability, for example.

Q. Where would the 60,000 tonnes of recyclable material be going every year if M&S was not taking it?

A. Landfill and export.

Q. Is there any way that businesses – particularly small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – that at the moment have no means of recycling their packaging waste, will be able to take part in this scheme in the authorities you have struck deals with?

A. This is aimed at householders, but there is no reason why you couldn’t extend it to businesses. We already run an office recycling scheme in 12 locations across the country. This is aimed at SMEs and we can collect their packaging – and not just M&S packaging either. There is no reason why we couldn’t extent that service as requested, if there are alignments across Somerset and Kent.