industry:

Personal & Home Care

GEOGRAPHIC FOOTPRINT:

London, UK

PRODUCT LINE:

Refill Home Care Packaging

Summary

The Challenge

To scale its refill program across homecare SKUs, M&S needed credible, science-backed insights to demonstrate the environmental benefits of switching from single-use to refillable packaging.
Key challenges included:

Time- and cost-intensive LCA processes made it difficult to assess multiple products efficiently

Lack of standardized, comparative data to clearly articulate the net environmental benefit of reuse across product lifecycles

Requirement for ISO-compliant data outputs to support transparent marketing, reporting, and sustainability claims

The Solution

M&S partnered with CarbonBright to run AI-powered, ISO-compliant Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) across its homecare product refill line. Our platform enabled:

Cradle-to-grave assessments across 20 SKUs in a fraction of the time

Scenario modeling based on varying usage and reuse conditions to generate comparative impact data

Audit-ready outputs aligned with ISO 14040, 14044, and 14067

The Impact

CarbonBright’s platform provided M&S with science-based, actionable insights that helped scale their refill program. The results:

10x faster LCA turnaround compared to traditional workflows

Identified the environmental breakeven point — just 2 reuses of aluminum refill containers led to a significantly lower per-use carbon footprint than single-use formats

Strengthened trust through transparent, data-backed impact reporting with ISO-compliant, audit ready reports

Enabled faster rollout of the refill program by arming internal teams with stakeholder-ready insights

About Marks & Spencer’s Sustainability Initiatives

Marks & Spencer has been at the forefront of sustainability with its Plan A program. This ambitious initiative targets transforming M&S into a net zero brand by 2040, covering the entire value chain.
Key aspects of the roadmap include:

Goal: Achieve net zero status by 2040.

Focus: Reduce emissions throughout the value chain, from raw material sourcing to product usage by customers.

Strategy: Implement a comprehensive plan involving customers, colleagues, supplier partners, and industry partners.

To this end, M&S has actively engaged in partnerships and collaborations with environmental organizations, technology firms, and experts in sustainable practices, aiming to leverage innovative solutions to drive their sustainability agenda.

CarbonBright Solution

Despite growing consumer demand for sustainable alternatives, brands struggle to quantify the true impact of refillable or low-waste formats, especially at scale. Traditional Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) are slow and expensive, making it nearly impossible to validate environmental benefits across a diverse portfolio. This lack of scalable, science-backed data creates a credibility gap in sustainability storytelling and slows the adoption of circular models.
Marks & Spencer needed a faster, more rigorous approach.
To meet this challenge, M&S adopted our AI-powered Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) platform, enabling them to:

Quantify cradle-to-grave emissions across 20 home care products in the refill program in a fraction of time

Model ‘average use scenarios’ to determine environmental breakeven points for aluminum refill containers

Generate ISO-aligned, audit-ready reports to support internal reporting and transparent marketing

Compare single-use vs. refillable formats using science-backed, scenario-based modeling

Our platform helped M&S move beyond one-off LCAs. They now have real-time, reliable environmental insights built into product development, sustainability reporting, and external communication. With clear visibility into impact and cost savings, their team had the confidence to scale the programme further.

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