Fast Company, March 2011

For aggressively pursuing a green supply chain

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MARKS & SPENCER

British company Marks & Spencer aims to be the world’s most sustainable retailer. Its supply chain—some 2,000 factories, 20,000 farms, and thousands of raw-material resources—leaves a massive environmental footprint. Below, 9 of the nearly 200 steps the company has taken to lighten its impact.

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MICROSOFT
For turning the human body into a game controller

Now offers 350 fair-trade products.

Cut imports by becoming the only major U. K. retailer to sell locally grown carrots year-round.

Through R&D, it extended the U.K.’s asparagus-growing season by a month.

Developed eight new “sustainable palm” food and beauty products to help stop the destruction of the world’s rain forests.

62% of its wild seafood is either certified (or being considered for certification) by the Marine Stewardship Council.

Microsoft wowed with several creations over the past year—a better Bing, the Windows Phone 7 OS—but we’re most impressed by what it destroyed: the old-fashioned remote control. Its revolutionary hands-free Kinect for the Xbox 360 console, which launched in November, uses an assortment of sensors to understand voice commands and read facial cues and physical gestures (a punch or a kick, for instance). It then responds accordingly on-screen (with, say, a video-game knockout). To date, Microsoft has sold at least 8 million Kinect consoles—more than enough to kick-start the Xbox’s transformation into a full-fledged entertainment platform. Among the forthcoming features: content from Netflix and Hulu Plus, as well as avatars-only virtual worlds for Microsoft’s 30 million Xbox Live subscribers.

Used recycled plastic bottles, instead of oil, to make polyester for fleeces, trousers, and suits.

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SOLARCITY
For being the nation’s leading installer of rooftop solar panels

Became the first big U.K. retailer to sell 100% British bacon.

Sold 8 million units of fair-trade-certified cotton clothing and home products in 2010.

Encouraged millions of its shoppers to donate used M&S clothing to Oxfam in return for a voucher toward their next M&S purchase.

SolarCity has installed more than 10,000 solar rooftops—10% of the total in the U.S. Its clients include eBay, Walmart, and Intel, and it has also signed a deal with Home Depot to become the chain’s only in-store vendor for home panels. The company handles the financing, installation, and maintenance. SolarCity guarantees that the cost of the lease payment, plus the new power bill, will be lower than the customer’s old power bill.