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Will I Be Seduced and Abandoned by Marks and Spencer?

Anna Guyer | 05.03.10

Marks & Spencer announced this week a programme to be "the world’s most sustainable retailer by 2015." The effort has them launching 80 major new commitments under M&S’ eco and ethical Plan A.

How brilliant to have a retailer with a green vision. Plan A is an inspired idea, as is their Big Green Idea, and now this.

Their ambition to be the greenest major retailer in the world, to lead the market, to embrace the idea that sustainability and success in business can go hand in hand, are all enough to make my heart skip a beat. This is exactly what I long for in mega-grocer-retailer.

M&S is trying to seduce me, it's working -- and yet, I can't help think to Italy's 1964 film by Pietro Germi, Sedotta e abbandonata, aka Seduced and Abandoned. I wonder if I'm being wooed with words, only to find that there's a lack of substance and sincerity behind them.

Whenever I am in an M&S store, I feel let down. I love the writing on the walls -- literally, the writing on the walls espousing green ideas -- but am I being seduced by empty promises?

When my eyes turn to the shelves they're drawn to excessive packaging, the disposable foil baking trays for Christmas turkeys, the food that's travelled miles and miles to reach the UK. I watch the staff moving about their work wearing fleeces and fingerless gloves because the store is kept at such an icy temperature, and all I can think about is the Chilling Facts Campaign about supermarket refrigeration and huge impact of HFC leakage in supermarket fridges.

I leave feeling cold, in all senses of the word.

I want to believe M&S. I admire their spirit. I applaud what they have done to be more green. I love that they're wooing me. But I can't love them back when the reality doesn't support the vision.

M&S, I beseech you: don't leave me sedotta e abbandonata.

I'd love to hear reader views on this.

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big green idea, grocers, chilling facts, plan a, m&s, marks and spencer