Retailers making their brands sustainable

Retailers are making some big promises when it comes to sustainability and their private label programmes.
Marks & Spencer in the UK has announced plans to become "the world's most sustainable retailer by 2015." In the Netherlands, Albert Heijn, the leading supermarket retailer publicly pledged to offer only sustainable private label products by 2015. M&S said that half of its private label products would carry at least one sustainable or ethical quality mark, with all converted by 2020. M&S also is moving to ensure that six key raw materials palm oil, soya, cocoa, beef, leather and coffee all came from sustainable sources.
In two years, the retailer said all its 10,000 farmers who supply meat, dairy, produce and flowers would be signed up to its sustainable agriculture programme, Farm for the Future. By 2015, the retailer said would begin expanding the plan to the thousands of other farmers whose meat and produce is used as ingredients.