The Body Shop International PLC, known as The Body Shop, has a range consisting of 1,200
products, including cosmetics and make-up in its 2,500 franchised stores in 61 countries.
The company, which has its international headquarters in Littlehampton, West Sussex, England, was
founded in 1976 by Anita Roddick and is now part owned by L'Oréal.
History In 1970, Anita Roddick visited "The Body Shop"
housed in a car repairs and garage in Berkeley, California selling naturally-scented soaps
and lotions called The Body Shop.
The shop run by Peggy Short and Jane Saunders used natural ingredients, and helped to employ
and train immigrant women.
Six years later, in 1976, Roddick opened a similar shop in the UK, using the same business
name, colour scheme, and cosmetic lines.
In 1987, Roddick offered Short and Saunders USD 3.5 million to change their shop's name
to Body Time.
By 1992 the rename was completed.
From its first launch in the UK in 1976, The Body Shop experienced rapid growth, expanding
at a rate of 50 percent annually.
The Body Shop stock was floated on London's Unlisted Securities Market in April 1984,
opening at 95p.
After it obtained a full listing on the London Stock Exchange, the stock was given the nickname
"The shares that defy gravity," as its price increased by more than 500%.
But the opening of Roddick's first modest shop received early attention when the Brighton
newspaper, The Evening Argus, carried an article about an undertaker with a nearby store who
complained about the use of the name "The Body Shop."
In March 2006, The Body Shop agreed to a £652.3 million takeover by L'Oréal.
It was reported that Anita and Gordon Roddick, who set up The Body Shop 30 years previously,
made £130 million from the sale.
Following her death in 2007, Prime Minister Gordon Brown paid tribute to Dame Anita, calling
her "one of the country's true pioneers" and an "inspiration" to businesswomen.
He said: "She campaigned for green issues for many years before it became fashionable
to do so and inspired millions to the cause by bringing sustainable products to a mass
market.
She will be remembered not only as a great campaigner but also as a great entrepreneur."
The Body Shop turned increasingly toward social and environmental campaigns to promote its
business in the late 1980s.
In 1997, Roddick launched a global campaign to raise self-esteem in women and against
the media stereotyping of women.
It focused on unreasonably skinny models in the context of rising numbers in bulimia and
anorexia.
There was a media controversy surrounding claims that L'Oréal continues to test on
animals, which contradicts The Body Shop's core value of Against Animal Testing.
L'Oréal states the company has not tested cosmetics on animals since 1989.
Animal testing on cosmestics ceased for the French-headquartered L'Oréal and all cosmetic
companies in Europe as well as cosmetics imports when the European Union passed legislation
banning all testing for personal care products.
Roddick addressed the controversy over selling The Body Shop to the world's largest cosmetics
company in an interview with The Guardian, which reported that "she sees herself as a
kind of "trojan horse" who, by selling her business to a huge firm, will be able to influence
the decisions it makes.
Suppliers who had formerly worked with the Body Shop will in future have contracts with
L'Oréal, and working with the company 25 days a year Roddick was able to have an input
into decisions."
Social activism The social activism dimension of the company
first evidenced in 1986 when The Body Shop proposed an alliance with Greenpeace in the
UK to save the whale.
Roddick began launching other promotions tied to social causes, with much public and media
interest.
The Body Shop regularly featured posters on shop windows and sponsorship of local charity
and community events.
Over time, Roddick blossomed into a full-time critic of business in general and the cosmetic
industry in particular, criticizing what she considered the environmental insensitivity
of the industry and traditional views of beauty, and aimed to change standard corporate practices
Roddick said: "For me, campaigning and good business is also about putting forward solutions,
not just opposing destructive practices or human rights abuses".
The Body Shop instituted pioneering social audits in the mid-1990s, and continues to
support its values such as Community Trade, reflecting its avowed practice of trading
with communities in need and giving them a fair price for natural ingredients or handcrafts
they purchase from these often marginalized countries.
The first Community Trade activity in 1987 was a footsie roller which was supplied by
a small community in Southern India and still a key CT supplier.
Since then, The Body Shop has found many trade partners in over 20 different countries that
often are overlooked by the local as well as the global society.
Criticisms have been made of the programme by fair trade activists.
"The company's prominently displayed claims to pay fairer prices to the Third World poor
covered less than a fraction of 1 per cent of its turnover", wrote Paul Vallely, the
former chair of Traidcraft, in the obituary of Anita Roddick published in The Independent.
Policy on animal testing The Body Shop web site explains that the organisation
does not sell or use either finished products or ingredients that were tested on animals
after 31 December 1990.
In October 2009, The Body Shop was awarded a 'Lifetime Achievement Award' by the RSPCA
in Britain, in recognition of its uncompromised policy which ensures ingredients are not tested
by its suppliers.
Community Fair Trade By 1991, The Body Shop's "Trade Not Aid" initiative
with the objective of "creating trade to help people in the Third World utilise their resources
to meet their own needs" had started a paper factory in Nepal employing 37 people producing
bags, notebooks and scented drawer liners.
Another initiative was a 33,000 square foot soap factory in the depressed Glasgow suburb
of Easterhouse, whose payroll included 100 residents.
Sometimes considered anti-capitalist or against globalization, The Body Shop philosophy is
in favour of international marketplaces.
The chain uses its influence and profits for programmes such as Trade Not Aid, aimed at
enacting fair labour practices, safe working environments and pay equality.According to
The Body Shop, 65% of the company's products contained community traded ingredients by
the end of 2008 and the company spent over $12 million on community trade ingredients
in 2006.
In October 2009, The Body Shop invited employees, including a store manager from the UK to visit
a supplier and see the benefits that the Community Trade programme has brought to a community
in India.
The Body Shop does not export its products to China, because cosmetics sold there have
to be tested on animals, according to Roddick.
However, The Body Shop has always sourced many of its baskets and other non cosmetic
supplies from China.
The Body Shop has undertaken periodic independent social audits of its activities.
Products The Body Shop carries a wide range of products
for the body, face, hair and home.
The Body Shop claims its products are "inspired by nature" and they feature ingredients such
as marula oil and sesame seed oil sourced through the Community Fair Trade program.
In 2010, The Body Shop produced its first ECOCERT certified organic skincare line, Nutriganics.
Following the launch of Nutriganics, The Body Shop reformulated their hair line to contain
no parabens or colourants, and produced a new line of antiperspirant deodorants that
contain no parabens or aluminium salts, and uses volcanic minerals as a substitute.
Products include: Body Butters
Body products such as body scrubs, lotion, and loofahs
Make Up Full skin care ranges
Paediatrician approved baby range Men's skin care
Hair care Fragrances
Bath products including shower gels and soaps The Body Shop Foundation
The Roddicks founded The Body Shop Foundation in 1990, which supports innovative global
projects working in the areas of human and civil rights and environmental and animal
protection.
It is The Body Shop International Plc's charitable trust funded by annual donations from the
company and through various fundraising initiatives.
The Body Shop Foundation was formed to consolidate all the charitable donations made by the company.
To date, The Body Shop Foundation has donated over £9.5 million sterling in grants.
The Foundation regularly gives gift-in-kind support to various projects and organisations
such as Children On The Edge.
The Body Shop does not recognise Trade Union membership.
Approximately 65% of the grants that the company funds come to nominations from the staff,
consultants or franchisers attached to the company from all over the world.
Controversy The September 1994 investigative article "Shattered
Image: Is The Body Shop Too Good to Be True?, " written by Jon Entine and published in Business
Ethics magazine, created an international controversy and led to dozens of stories in
the international media, including articles on The New York Times' business section front
page and on ABC World News Tonight.
A flurry of news reports led to a temporary 50% drop in the market value of the stock
of the company, which until that point had been considered a model "socially responsible"
company.
Entine reported that Anita Roddick, founder of Body Shop International in the UK, had
stolen the name, store design, marketing concept and most product line ideas from The Body
Shop founded in 1970 in Berkeley, California by Peggy Short and Jane Saunders who started
the French-style perfume store, where customers could do their own blending.
Roddick subsequently fabricated her story of traveling around the world discovering
exotic beauty ingredients.
In 1989, Roddick purchased the U.S. and Israeli rights to The Body Shop name, and the Berkeley-based
chain of five stores renamed itself Body Time.
He reported that Roddick's "natural" products contained extensive amounts of artificial
colourings, scents and preservatives.
Despite Roddick's unsubstantiated claims and inaccurate reports in popular articles and
even some university case studies that Roddick's The Body Shop "gave most of its profits to
charity", documents from Britain's Charity Commission showed that Roddick's company gave
nothing to charity over its first 11 years and was penurious in its philanthropy thereafter.
The Body Shop also faced millions of dollars in claims by disenchanted franchisees, who
believed they had been mis-sold franchises.
Entine referred to The Body Shop's marketing as "greenwashing," which was one of the first
uses of that term.
The article in Business Ethics, which was cited with a National Press Club Award for
Consumer Journalism in 1994, is still widely used in university business ethics classes
and is generally credited with prompting companies claiming to be socially responsible to match
their claims with operational practices and to increase transparency.
The "Shattered Image" article had originally been scheduled to be published as a 10,000
word feature in Vanity Fair earlier in 1994 but was dropped after legal threats by The
Body Shop.
The original article was eventually published in 2004 by The Nation Books in Killed: Great
Journalism Too Hot to Print, edited by David Wallis.
Business Ethics, which had featured Roddick on its cover just the year before, subsequently
agreed to print a much shorter version of the exposé.
In April 2013 it was revealed that Bodyshop was charging Irish consumers up to 50% more
than their British counterparts.
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