? ?
WORLD / Newsmaker
Body Shop founder Anita Roddick dies
(AP)
Updated: 2007-09-11 10:17
LONDON -- Anita Roddick, founder of the international Body Shop cosmetics
chain, died Monday night after suffering a major brain hemorrhage, her
family said. She was 64.
Body Shop founder Anita Roddick poses for photographers Thursday Dec. 11,
1997 in London. [AP]
Roddick, who died at a hospital in Chichester, had revealed in February
that she contracted hepatitis C through a blood transfusion while giving
birth to a daughter in 1971. She made the announcement after being named
head of the British charity Hepatitis C Trust.
The business woman was lauded as the "Queen of Green" for trailblazing
business practices that sought to be environmentally friendly and won her
renown in her native England and around the world.
"Businesses have the power to do good," she wrote on the website of the
company, which was bought last year by the French company L'Oreal Group.
Roddick opened her first Body Shop outlet in 1976 in Brighton, southern
England, before fair trade and eco-friendly businesses were fashionable.
She said her business ethics were inspired in part by women's beauty
rituals that she discovered while traveling in developing countries and
lessons from closer to home that her mother passed on from life during
the hard years of World War II.
"Why waste a container when you can refill it? And why buy more of
something than you can use? We behaved as she did in the Second World
War, we reused everything, we refilled everything and we recycled all we
could," Roddick wrote.
The Body Shop opposed product testing on animals and tried to encourage
development by purchasing materials from small communities in the Third
World. It also invested in a wind farm in Wales as part of its campaign
to support renewable energy, and it set up its own human rights award.
The company has grown into a global phenomenon with nearly 2,000 stores
in 50 countries and remains independently run despite being owned by
L'Oreal Group.
In recognition of Roddick's contribution to business and charity, Queen
Elizabeth II made her a dame, the female equivalent of a knight, in 2003.
Greenpeace executive director John Sauven called Roddick an "incredible
woman" who would be "sorely missed."
"She was so ahead of her time when it came to issues of how business
could be done in different ways, not just profit motivated but taking
into account environmental issues," Sauven said.
"When you look at it today, and how every company claims to be green, she
was living this decades ago," he added.
Roddick, the daughter of Italian immigrants, said she opened her Brighton
store with only modest hopes.
"I started the Body Shop simply to create a livelihood for myself and my
two daughters while my husband, Gordon, was trekking across the
Americas," she wrote. "I had no training or experience ... ."
Roddick and her husband stepped down as co-chairmen of the company in
2002, but she continued to contribute as a consultant.
She joked that the Body Shop's trademark green color scheme came by
accident because it was the only color that could cover the mold on the
walls of her first shop.
Top World News ?
* Petraeus talks of troop withdrawal
* Al-Qaida says 2nd bin Laden video coming
* Rocket wounds 25 in southern Israel
* 5 killed in plane crash in DR Congo
* Italian tenor Pavarotti is dead
Today's Top News ?
* Terrorism 'big threat' to Olympics - minister
* Al-Qaida: 2nd bin Laden video coming
* Strict screening sparks sperm shortage
* Petraeus outlines troop withdrawal
* Financial policy changes to back outbound investment
Most Commented/Read Stories in 48 Hours
Learning Materials, Mandarin audio lessons, Chinese writing lessons, Chinese vocabulary lists, About chinese characters, News in Chinese, Go to China, Travel to China, Study in China, Teach in China, Dictionaries, Learn Chinese Painting, Your name in Chinese, Chinese calligraphy, Chinese songs, Chinese proverbs, Chinese poetry, Chinese tattoo, Beijing 2008 Olympics, Mandarin Phrasebook, Chinese editor, Pinyin editor, China Travel, Travel to Beijing, Travel to Tibet
No comments:
Post a Comment