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Marks & Spencer has long been a fixture in UK shopping centres and high streets and is much loved for its seasonal festive fashion and food, in particular. But is it ethical? How sustainable are Marks & Spencer’s clothes? Let’s find out.
This article is based on the Marks & Spencer rating published in April 2025 and may not reflect claims the brand has made since then.
Marks & Spencer is known for quality, but what about sustainability?
Heritage brand Marks and Spencer was founded in 1884 and has become a staple in the UK as a reliable retailer for food, fashion, and homeware, not to mention a huge employer in the region. Its financial results make major news and are often seen as a signifier of the wider economic circumstances. In recent decades it expanded overseas, too.
The brand has long been associated with high calibre products and its tagline (“This is not just food, this is M&S food”), has been adopted into the British cultural lexicon to describe something of quality. But what does that mean in 2025, when Marks & Spencer is also known for mass producing clothing? How can it really make so much stuff to a supposedly high standard and sell it so cheaply? The brand is known for operating large-scale retail stores packed with racks and racks of clothing, which leads us to ask: where does it all go, what’s it all made from, and who made it?
Here, we’re diving into the analysis of Marks & Spencer’s disclosed information—in particular, its 2023/24 ESG report—and publicly available third party sources to bring you answers to these questions, and explaining how ethical the retailer is when scored against Good On You’s leading sustainability methodology. Overall, Marks & Spencer rates “It’s a Start”, a middling score that reflects its work to reduce some of its impact but noting it isn’t going far enough, especially as the brand is a major mass producer—a key point noted by our analysts.
Environmental impact
Marks & Spencer rates “It’s a Start” for its environmental impact.
It uses some lower impact materials and claims it’s on track to completely replace virgin polyester with recycled polyester in its clothing by 2026. That’s great, but polyester is still fossil-fuel-derived and deposits microplastics every time it’s washed, so Marks & Spencer ought to consider reducing its reliance on the fabric altogether—especially since it is the brand’s second most-used material.
Marks & Spencer is working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from processes in its manufacturing and has set a science-based target to reduce emissions in its direct operations and supply chain.
The brand’s clothes have been identified on at least two occasions in textile waste dumps in the Global South, and although the brand states that it doesn’t export excess clothing, there is clearly a lot of it going to waste after it’s sold, which speaks to the amount the brand is producing. It is taking some measures in terms of producer responsibility, operating a take-back scheme in partnership with Oxfam, a repair service, and implementing a one-year guarantee on children’s clothing, but ultimately producing so much stuff is never going to be a sustainable model.
The brand experienced a cyber attack in 2025 that closed its online sales for six weeks over a key selling period, leaving, anecdotally, reams of clothes unsold. It’s not clear what happened to all these garments but we’d like to see the brand disclose information on it.
Labour rights
Marks & Spencer’s score for labour rights is in the middle of the scale too, with an “It’s a Start” rating from our analysts.
More than half the brand’s final production stage is certified by Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) Best Practice Guidance, and it discloses all of its tier 1 fashion suppliers in collaboration with Open Supply Hub.
Marks & Spencer also has initiatives to support vulnerable women and girls in its supply chain, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the brand disclosed adequate policies to protect workers in its supply chain from the virus—something it attributes to many long-term relationships with suppliers, which is the ideal way for brands to work with factories.
All this is strong work from a so-called “high street” brand and sets a good example for others, but one area Marks & Spencer could improve is in ensuring workers throughout the entire supply chain are paid a living wage. There’s no evidence of this at the moment, but it’s a really important aspect of labour justice.
Animal welfare
Another “It’s a Start” score for Marks & Spencer in the animal welfare area.
That’s because it has a formal policy aligned with the Five Domains of Animal Welfare, it sources wool from non-mulesed sheep, and sources all of its leather from finishing tanneries certified by the Leather Working Group (LWG). It also has a goal to source all of its wool from “preferred” sources by 2030, which means those certified by the likes of the Responsible Wool Standard (RWS), Responsible Mohair Standard (RMS), Responsible Alpaca Standard (RAS), Recycled Claim Standard (RCS), and the Global Recycled Standard (GRS).
The brand does, however, still use plenty of leather, shearling, wool, down, as well as exotic animal hair, which can all cause suffering or death to animals. We’d like to see Marks & Spencer consider some more sustainable alternatives to animal materials, and use some of its massive purchasing power to fund the development and testing of emerging non-plastic alternatives.
Overall rating: ‘It’s a Start’
Marks & Spencer has put in the work to keep improving its practices over the years. It discloses all of its suppliers in the final production stage, the vast majority of polyester it uses is recycled, and, importantly, it shares whether it’s on track to meet some of its goals. That’s why our analysts scored the brand our middling “It’s a Start” rating.
What could it do to reach “Good” or “Great”? Well, Marks & Spencer could decrease the amount it produces and move beyond the take-make-waste model, which are driving the huge problems of overconsumption and textile waste. It could go deeper on its existing commitments, like disclosing the suppliers deeper in its supply chain (eg raw materials producers). And while the brand has made commitments to improving its animal material sourcing, the reality is that it still uses a lot of these products (it’s famed for its cashmere scarves and sweaters in winter, for instance), so reducing its reliance on animal material would be a good direction, too.
Lastly, we’d really like to see Marks & Spencer commit to paying everyone in its supply chain a living wage. This is a big one, because given how much clothing it manufactures, there are likely a huge number of people making them, and they all deserve to be paid well enough to live comfortably.
Alternatives to Marks & Spencer
Marks & Spencer is much loved for its variety, stocking clothes for women, men, and children, along with homeware, beauty, and more, all at fairly reasonable prices. If you’re looking for “Good” and “Great” alternatives, scroll through to meet some of the brands working in these categories.
