Anita Roddick, who started The Body Shop chain of cosmetic stores to promote causes such as trade with small-scale, indigenous growers and an end to animal testing, died Monday evening of a brain hemmorage. She was 64.
Ms. Roddick was a maverick entrepreneur determined to show that businesses could do well by doing good. The Body Shop eschewed advertising, promoted and supported myriad environmental and social justice causes, and within 15 years numbered over 2,000 stores in 50 countries.
Ms. Roddick was a pioneer in both the green movement and the Fair Trade movement. She called community trade "the best poverty eradicator in the world."
Ms. Roddick had a brief but profound interaction with Ithaca in 2003, when she worked on a British television documentary on local currencies around the world which included Ithaca Hours. It was by far the best and most incisive of the scores of media treatments of Ithaca Hours over the years. It can be seen at the following site:
www.handsontv.info/series4/cash_no_questions.html
Stephen Burke
for Ithaca Blog
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