Anita Roddick...Pioneer of Ethical ConsumerismAnita Roddick did not have auspicious beginnings. Born Oct. 23, 1942 in a bomb shelter in Littlehampton, Sussex, England, Anita Lucia Perilli, she was the daughter of Italian immigrants. After leaving school, Roddick trained as a teacher at Bath College of Higher Education, and traveled widely before meeting Gordon Roddick, whom she married in 1970. The couple were business entrepreneurs, opening a restaurant and hotel together. Anita became the mother of two daughters, and founded The Body Shop in Brighton, featuring 15 different products, in 1976 between two funeral homes. In a quote from Third Way Magazine in 1993, Roddick says: "The original Body Shop was a series of brilliant accidents. It had a great smell, it had a funky name. It was positioned between two funeral parlours--that always caused controversy. It was incredibly sensuous. It was 1976, the year of the heat wave, so there was a lot of flesh around. We knew about storytelling then, so all the products had stories. We recycled everything, not because we were environmentally friendly, but because we didn’t have enough bottles. It was a good idea. What was unique about it, with no intent at all, no marketing nous, was that it translated across cultures, across geographical barriers and social structures. It wasn’t a sophisticated plan, it just happened like that. Today, the Body Shop has 2,400 stores in 61 countries, and is the second largest cosmetics franchise in the world. So why is this so significant? Roddick did not start out as a social activist, but slowly became one of the world leaders in environmental and fair trade activism. In 1986, The Body Shop proposed an alliance with Greenpeace to promote her line as helping to save the whale. The Body Shop regularly campaigned on social issues. One of its more famous campaigns was the creation of the "Ruby" doll, a size 16 Barbie-like doll that came with the tag line, "There are 3 billion women who don't look like supermodels and only 8 who do." This was a global campaign to raise self-esteem in women and focused on the skinny models and the rising numbers of girls and women who had anorexia and bulimia. In the mid-90s, The Body Shop and Anita Roddick instituted pioneering social audits, reflecting its avowed practice of fair trade and their use of natural ingredients. Their first "fair trade" activity was in 1987, a footsie roller supplied by a small community in Southern India. Since that time, The Body Shop has found many trade partners in over 20 countries. The Body Shop never has, and never will test on animals. The Body Shop founded "Trade Not Aid" in 1991 with the objective of creating trade to help people in third world countries to utilize their resources to meet their own needs. The organization started a paper factory in Nepal employing 37 people, and a 33,000 square foot soap factory in Glasgow whose paroll included 100 residents. The Roddicks founded The Body Shop Foundation in 1990, which supports animal protection, human and civil rights and environmental causes world wide. To date, the Body Shop Foundation has donated 9.5 million pounds sterling (nearly 15 million U.S. dollars) in grants. The foundation gives regularly to many projects and organizations who support fair trade, animal rights and civil rights. In 1990 Anita Roddick founded COTE (Children on the Edge) in response to her visits to Romanian orphanages. COTE helps to de-institutionalize children over the course of their early lifeand focuses on disadvantaged children affected by conflicts, natural disasters, disabilities and HIV/AIDS. Anita Roddick contributed so much over her lifetime I cannot cover it all here. She has been awarded many honors and in 2003, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Roddick a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Sadly, in 2004,Anita Roddick was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis due to long-standing hepatitis C and she died of an acute brain haemorrhage on September 10, 2007, just short of her 65th birthday. She fulfilled her promise to leave her estate to charities, and was true to her causes till the end.
* 1984 - Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year * 1988 - Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) * 1988 - Honorary Doctorate from the University of Sussex * 1991 - Center for World DevelopmentEducation's World Vision Award, USA * 1993 - Banksia Foundation's Australia Environmental Award * 1993 - Mexican Environmental Achiever Award * 1993 - National Audubon Society Medal, USA * 1994 - Botwinick Prize in Business Ethics, USA * 1994 - University of Michigan's Annual Business Leadership Award, USA * 1995 - Women's Business Development Center's First Annual Woman Power Award, USA * 1996 - Women's Center's Leadership Award, USA * 1996 - The Gleitsman Foundation's Award of Achievement, USA * 1997 - United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Honouree, Eyes on the Environment * 1999 - British Environment & Media Award * 1999 - Chief Wiper-Away of Ogoni tears,Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, Nigeria * 2001 - International Peace Prayer Day Organisation's Woman of Peace * 2003 - Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire * 2004 - Honorary Doctorate of Public Service, The Sage Colleges * 2005 - Shell liveWIRE survey of inspirational role models,third place * 2006 - Spirit of the Rainforest Award, Rainforest Action Network Anita Roddick has published many books, including one of my favorite and highest recommendations, "Take it Personally:How globalization affects you and powerful ways to change it." Anita Roddick, 2004 |