Published on Sunday, August 26, 2001 in the Sunday Herald (Scotland)
We Should All Feel Roddick's Disillusionment Editorial
SO was Anita Roddick right? Twenty years ago, she was the bright-eyed entrepreneur who was as famous as Sir Richard Branson. She wanted to save the planet and give jobs to coffee farmers. Did she do a Gerald Ratner on her own creation when she spoke at the Edinburgh International Book Festival last Friday?
The Body Shop founder said her ethical cosmetics chain has lost its way since being floated on the stock market and has no place as a mere cog in the international financial system she despises.
In what will become a quote for our time, she said: 'The Body Shop is now really a dysfunctional coffin.' She added: 'I wanted every shop to challenge the World Trade Organization, to ask every Member of Parliament, and they won't do that.'
How many other entrepreneurs who sell out their ideals to bigger companies end up in the same disillusioned state at Roddick? There are probably quite a few in Scotland these days after the demise of the technology companies.
Roddick has been a great supporter of Third World trading cooperatives and has called on those opposing aspects of economic globalization to bypass governments and go straight to the corporations. But have her 1700 shops in 46 countries really worked? Has she changed the world?
Questioning Body Shop's future as a publicly quoted company, she said the relentless drive to maximize profits for investors was killing the 25-year-old company's spirit. 'Did flotation work? Yes, it did. It gave us money to build manufacturing plants. Does it work now? I don't think so,' she told the audience in one of the Charlotte Square tents.
Body Shop's corporate machinery moved swiftly to do some damage limitation. Listing on the stock exchange had benefited Body Shop greatly in helping it see the difference between itself and giant corporations, which 'are simply interested in maximizing profits whatever the cost for planet or people.'
There had already been two attempts to take the company she founded in her kitchen private again, where it could avoid the harsh light of investor scrutiny and the pressure of market forces, Roddick said. 'The market controls everything, but the market has no heart.'
While promoting her book, Business As Unusual, Roddick came under a scathing attack from a former employee in the audience. The ex-employee said she had been callously laid off in contravention of Body Shop's own employee-friendly practices.
But Roddick said that since handing over the reins to the new chief executive, Patrick Gournay, she had no say in the day-to-day running of the company once touted as the model of an ethical business.
'I can't interfere. I'm not allowed to interfere,' she said. Roddick was a tireless environmental campaigner, who joined anti-capitalist groups protesting at the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle, Washington. But she said that demonstrations that were aimed only at governments, like those at the recent G8 summit in Genoa, Italy, were pointless.
'You will not see another Genoa. You will not see another Seattle, because it's a waste of time,' she said.
Roddick, now in her 50s, has said she is getting ever more radical as she gets older and wants to take the fight for her causes straight to the boardroom.
'The protests are going nowhere. We should be directly pointing the finger at businesses, not even bothering with the governments.'
Somewhere along the line it has all turned sour for Roddick and this is more than just a personal blip. Roddick did a huge amount to stimulate the kind of lifestyle entrepreneurs who have given the UK such a wonderful diversity of exotic fruit bars, organic bistros and quirky bookshops.
Roddick's growing disillusionment with global business is a serious blow to those who believe the enterprise economy can deliver wealth and self-esteem more equitably.
© 2001 smg sunday newspapers ltd