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Anita Roddick

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Anita Roddick was a famous British businesswoman and a very active campaigner. She is best known for starting a company called The Body Shop. This business sold natural beauty products to people all over the world. Anita wanted her company to be a force for good in society. She believed that businesses could show moral leadership to help the world. She used her success to fight for human rights and the environment.

Her way of doing business was very different from other companies. The Body Shop was one of the first to stop testing products on animals. She also promoted fair trade with people in developing countries. This means her company bought goods in a fair way from those lands. She wanted to sell quality skincare in refillable containers to help the planet. She also used truth in her marketing instead of just using hype.

Anita's journey began in Littlehampton, Sussex, where she was born in 1942. She trained to be a schoolteacher in Bath and taught history and English. In 1976, she opened her first Body Shop in Brighton, England. She did this to earn money for her two daughters. Later, she expanded her business into a huge multinational corporation. By 1991, her company had 700 different branches.

Anita did much more than just run a successful business. In 1990, she started a charity called Children on the Edge. This group helped children in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. She also helped raise money for the Angola Three. These were African-American men held in solitary confinement in Louisiana. By 2004, The Body Shop had 1,980 stores and 77 million customers. In 2006, the company was sold to L'Oréal for £652 million.

Many people know Anita because she used her wealth to help others. She had a fortune of about £51 million. When she died in 2007, she left all of that money to charity. This shows how much she cared about her mission. You can see her influence in how many companies today care about the earth. Her husband, Gordon, even started a group called 38 Degrees in her memory.

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