E1. Anita Roddick ⇱
Anita Perilli was born in 1942 in Littlehampton, a town in the south of England. After leaving school, she trained as an English teacher, but before she found a job, she decided to travel around the world. When Anita returned to Britain, she met a Scottish man called Gordon Roddick. They fell in love and got married. They had two daughters and moved to Brighton.
It was there in 1976 that Anita Roddick opened the first Body Shop store. She wanted to sell cosmetics that were natural and not tested on animals. She also recycled the bottles that contained her products: customers could bring them back to the shop and refill them. Six months later, she opened another shop, and by 1991, there were seven hundred Body Shop stores. By 2004, the Body Shop had over two thousand stores with 71 million customers in 51 countries. Anita Roddick was passionate about social and environmental issues. She gave money to many charities. She joined anti-globalisation protests and criticised big oil companies that did not invest in renewable energy.
Near the end of her life, she sold Body Shop to LOréal, one of the world's largest cosmetics companies.
Many of her customers were angry, but she gave most of her money to charities. She died in 2007 at the age of 65.