The Body Shop has been under fire for not following through on their environmental commitments but I found out that after Roddick took the company public she was eventually fired by the board of her own company when the environmental policies that made the company so inspirational and successful got in the way of maximum profit.
Anyway here's the quote.
Tragically, she died yesterday aged just 64 from a brain hemorhage. A truly remarkable activist, environmental campaigner and ethical entrepreneur, here are some of her own inspirational words...
I believe in businesses where you engage in creative thinking, and where you form some of your deepest relationships. If it isn't about the production of the human spirit, we are in big trouble. I didn't go to business school, didn't care about financial stuff and the stock market. I want to work for a company that contributes to and is part of the community. I want something not just to invest in. I want something to believe in. If I can't do something for the public good, what the hell am I doing? Consumers have not been told effectively enough that they have huge power and that purchasing and shopping involve a moral choice. If I had learned more about business ahead of time, I would have been shaped into believing that it was only about finances and quality management. If you are an activist, you bring the activism of your life into your business, or if you love creative art, you can bring that in. If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just. If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito. Look at the Quakers - they were excellent business people that never lied, never stole; they cared for their employees and the community which gave them the wealth. They never took more money out than they put back in.
Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking. One of the interesting things is once we started to get smarter and understand the issues more, and when we realized that we were going to be a real voice, then we ventured out with an extraordinary social justice agenda.
The Body Shop Foundation is run by our staff and supports social activism and environmental activism. We don't tend to support big agencies. There is no scientific answer for success. You can't define it. You've simply got to live it and do it.
Vigilante consumers are working with human rights groups, environmental groups - the grass roots movement - and are definitely challenging corporations. We have been creating a whole range of publications for developing the activist. All knowledge should be shaped into action and we have been proselytizing that for many years. We turned all the shops into action stations to educate the public on certain issues such as human rights. We were all social activists, and the activism sort of transferred itself into a new environmental movement.
When you run an entrepreneurial business, you have hurry sickness - you don't look back, you advance and consolidate. But it is such fun.
Years ago nobody was elected on the economic ticket. It was either the education platform, or it was health or it was other issues. It is only recently that economic values have superceded every other human value.
It's a bummer.
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