Marks & Sparks, our recently refreshed & successful retailer, today announced plans to become carbon neutral in 5 years. M&S plans to spend £200million by 2012 to become one of Britain's greenest retailers.

And that's good news, because green consumers will love Marks & Spencer if they succeed, it will be good news for the environment & British life and hopefully it will spur other retailers on to also go green.

Stuart Rose, the chief executive of Marks & Spencer, has called the initiative 'Plan A' because there is no Plan B. And with a successful business thinking like that, it's a most welcome development.

Becoming carbon neutral means M&S will be achieving the equivalent of removing 100,000 cars from British roads.

A quick run-down of M&S's green & eco ideas looks like this:

• Stop sending waste to landfill sites by 2012
• Improve energy efficiency by 25%
• Power all stores using renewable energy
• Trial the use of energy from food waste (anaerobic digestion)
• Double the amount of locally-sourced food over the next 12 months
• Reduce the amount of food imported by air
• Use biofuels for its delivery trucks
• Reduce packaging by 25%
• Sell polyester clothing made from recycled bottles
• Increase the amount of fairtrade cotton goods

Jonathan Porritt, founder of Forum for the Future, advised M&S in their venture and said it set a new benchmark for green standards in business & retail.