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Marks & Spencer
Valpak helps Marks & Spencer to meet environmental compliance obligations in France
M&S
Opening a new store poses a lot of challenges for retailers. They must ensure that the store meets the stringent requirements of high quality retailing, and smooth running operations and services expected by their customers. This is tough enough when opening stores in the UK, but when opening a new store overseas there are many other challenges to tackle.
Challenge
The Packaging Waste, WEEE and Waste Batteries Regulations differ in each country, which means that organisations must take time to research and understand their requirements in each country. They also need to take into account language barriers, currency differences and additional pieces of environmental legislation.
Understanding all of the requirements under these laws is essential. If certain requirements are overlooked this could result in loss of brand reputation through prosecution and bad publicity.
Marks & Spencer faced these challenges when opening a new flag ship store in France. Having placed a lot of investment into their award winning Plan A commitments, being fully compliant in France was a must for them.
Solution
Marks & Spencer commissioned our International Compliance Service to ensure that their flag ship store in France was fully compliant by the time of its launch.
We produced a comprehensive action plan for Marks & Spencer, which detailed:
- what obligations they had in France
- data required
- regulatory timescales for providing data submissions
- costs of becoming compliant in France
Following the production of this action plan, Marks & Spencer took the decision to fully outsource their compliance in France to us. This included:
- registering Marks & Spencer with the appropriate French authorities and compliance scheme
- collating data submissions for Marks & Spencer and submitting them to the appropriate authority by the required regulatory timescales
Results
Outsourcing the administrative burden of international compliance to us allowed Marks & Spencer to focus on the delivery of a high quality experience to their customers in France. It also provided them with peace of mind that they were fully compliant in France and therefore meeting their Plan A commitments.
They plan to expand their services and benefit from loyal customers who are seeking Marks & Spencer products and services in their own countries. As such, we continue to work with Marks & Spencer to identify their obligations in other countries across the EU and further afield, to help them ensure that they are fully compliant with international, environmental legislation.
Having worked with Valpak for several years it seemed logical to investigate their international capabilities as we increase our global reach. It was quickly demonstrated that they have a dedicated team which could identify, quantify and satisfy our obligations on a country specific basis. 12 months after opening in Paris, it seems we are throwing them a different challenge every week, and they have risen to every one in a timely manner. I would not hesitate to recommend the Valpak team, and loo