Do Not Adjust Your Focus Episode 5 - Mike Barry, ex M&S on the story of Plan A
Hello, World!
The story behind Plan A and what companies can learn from it
In Episode 5 of Do Not Adjust Your Focus, our regular podcast, Stuart talks to Mike Barry, previously Director of Sustainable Business at Marks & Spencer, where he developed, led and implemented Plan A, the company's famous eco and ethical programme.
Mike believes a new business cycle is emerging one that has the potential to create a more balanced society and supporting economy.
He and Stuart discuss this, as well as the lessons that other organisations can learn from the Plan A story.
You can listen to this and previous episodes here, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:09 Introduction
01:12 How did “Plan A” come about and what excited you about it? Our inspiring Chief Executive at the time, Sir Stuart Rose, said: “The world is changing”, emphasising that people were beginning to look at businesses for leadership when it came to safeguarding the planet. Being an aspirational brand, M&S began questioning how it could concretely change the world for the better.
02:38 You had a solid starting point and a visionary leader. But what challenges did you encounter when designing and implementing Plan A? Challenge number one was the sheer scale of the commitment itself, having to implement it across all areas of the business. Challenge number two was establishing both a short-term and a long-term business case for sustainability.
04:14 You can’t begin to implement something of this scale without a solid business case. You need to make clear projections based on concrete data – where did you begin? There were a variety of factors that needed to be looked at – on one hand it was a case of motivating our employees to believe in the purpose led business they worked for, but also making sure our 32m customers trusted us as a business and retailer. That paired with the prospect of new opportunities that would eventually stem from a more sustainable future, among other factors, reinforced the fact that there absolutely had to be a business case.
05:38 You devoted 4000 working days to Plan A – do you feel you successfully embedded a culture that will endure beyond both leadership and personnel change? Each and every leader through the years has brought a different spin to what its sustainable future looked like, but all were, and still are, 100% supportive.
07:15 How much do businesses acknowledge that reality? The fact it’s so much more prominent on the agenda is a good thing, but one of the downsides is that companies that are leaping on it have a degree of impatience in wanting to reach perfection quickly – but it’s an ongoing climb, you never reach a summit. There were five stages to Plan A:
First - in 2007 we committed to building a foundation for change.
Second – we baked it into how the business did business on a daily basis.
Third - partnership. You may be leading on it, but we knew we needed help.
Fourth – engagement. We brought 32m customers and 83k colleagues into the conversation.
Fifth – products and services. We implemented the shift into every product and service sold by the business.
09:20 How doable do you think it is when you hear the zero-carbon target timeframes proposed by Governments? Climate crisis has never been worse – everywhere we look our lives are being disrupted. We don’t have 10-20 years to change this – we need to accelerate this collectively. The choice is ours, but as business leaders we need to drive exponential change.
11:38 There is a theme emerging – everyone who really knows their stuff in the space is a tech optimist. Tech is part of the solution – what have you learnt from this in terms of Plan A? Genetic and modified food in the 1990s was the first try to get us to change our food habits with tech. It failed, with no benefits going to the consumer. So why would people take a risk like that?
To be beneficial to both planet and people, you need to learn from past mistakes and earn people’s trust by doing things very differently in the future.
13:45 There is a big tension between fear and hope – people were immediately afraid of scientifically produced food, for example. So how do you win back over public opinion? You need a societal case to get citizens involved. You have to show individual people that change is good for them by bringing the language out of the tech sphere, and making it real to people’s lives.
15:55 We have a new government – how confident do you feel about the UK’s ability and appetite to lead in this space given the broader political context? There is an opportunity to grow the UK positively – our Government does want a greener economy, not only from a moral perspective, but also from a sustainable growth perspective.
17:28 Do you think the government is equipped to be nimble enough to capitalize on the opportunities available? The UK farming base is one of the best in the world, for example – there is lots to be proud of. One way forward is artificial technology, we have to work with existing farmers and show there are different ways of doing things.
We can help farmers through new income streams, paying them as a public service rather than paying them to produce food that is unsustainable.
There is no one solution.
20:24 What could get in the way of that happening? Markets are not set up for collaboration, they aren’t set up to bring hyper competitiveness to the table. The biggest challenge is how we run our society and the economy that must change, but it’s fixable.
21:20 Who is best placed to bring those different audiences along the journey? Will it be companies, policy makers, or both? When talking about the ideal system you’d have a full board leading on implementation followed by ranks. We need a new food system entirely; half coming from collaboration, half from competition.
22:53 Will there be a degree of protectionism around industries and ways of working, especially in a post Brexit period? You’ve got to be humble to recognise that Governments have a huge amount to do over the coming years. They need to set the direction, and businesses need to then step forward. If they don’t, Governments will intervene, or movements of people will reject the status quo and won’t want to buy, work for, or invest in those not moving in the right direction.
24:37 Which companies are getting it right? Tesla – electric. Allbirds – comfy and sustainable.
26:42 Veganism has been astonishing with its shift over the last 12 months – it’s now mainstream, and people are proud to try it. Influencers talk about products positively, inspiring consumers to shift to a flexitarian diet (having high quality meat as a treat, as we used to do in the past). There is no one solution – people need positive choices.
27:43 Which industries are lagging behind? Fast fashion. We’re seeing a shift towards new models whereby things are rented and reused, where people are consuming considerably less. This means that half of today’s big clothing companies won’t be around in 10 years. Same goes for mass tourism.
The elephant in the room is of course finance; you need to show financiers that it’s truly worth investing in the right direction.
29:20 Circular Economy – how do we achieve that? What’s in the way of us reaching that holy grail? The marketing industry has people hooked on upgrading every consumer good possible. We need to use technology to show people the impacts their current ways of living are causing, and what can be done about it. People need knowledge and information.
30:28 COP25 – on a scale of 1-10 how do you feel coming out of the back of that? Positive or otherwise? Some have been brilliant – Paris. Some bad – Madrid. COP26 in Glasgow has to deliver. If it fails, we have a serious problem. British businesses need to step forward collectively and inspire other countries to follow because of the positive benefits.
31:40 One thing I noticed from the COP25 commentary – there was nervousness about the “youth movement”. Should politicians be afraid of Greta and the next generation… Or inspired? Greta and the next generation are spreading the right message. We can always pick at things they get right or wrong, but the meta message is spot on. Businesses need to respond or be challenged by movements. If there is a backlash vs capitalism everyone goes down together – so let’s hope those who have yet to join are inspired to do so.
33:22 We’re still using 20th century politics to solve 21st century crisis – do we need more collaboration? We have to make the next decade much more democratic, making climate action feel relevant through democratic structures.
34:43 I have a desire to see the next 10 years used well and make Britain synonymous of leadership in this space. A big part of that will come down to national Government and how much decision making is devolved to cities. Do you agree? We can get national Governments to create direction of travel, and smaller businesses to drive change. Get cities to collaborate. We need to allow for a new form of democracy and capitalism to form over the next 10 years – we’ll have to allow individual towns, cities, states to decide what the detail means to them.
36:59 It’s a new decade – what’s your new year’s resolution going to be in to 2020? One thing for businesses is to step forward collaboratively to change the system.