The Hindu Business Line : Going to the grassroots

In India, The Body Shop has been supporting a community trade programme since 1987. Teddy Exports in Tamil Nadu has been supplying wooden massage products such as foot rollers, muscle rollers, twin ball massage rollers and several accessories including gift bags, cosmetic bags and sugaring strips to The Body Shop. Operating from a rural site in Tirumangalam near Madurai, Teddy Exports employs over 300 men and women in the area. Most of the workforce comprises casual agricultural labour that now has the advantage of regular work and fair wages. The wood used in the products is that of Acacia nilotica, a sustainable tree that grows fast, regenerates from the roots when it is cut and also enriches the soil through the process of nitrogen fixing.

Besides, Teddy Exports also contributes a percentage of its revenue to its charitable foundation, The Teddy Trust, which funds various community projects such as education, HIV and AIDS awareness initiatives, health care and veterinary services for employees and the local community.

"The Body Shop has enjoyed a good relationship with India for nearly 20 years since we launched our community trade programme in 1987 with Teddy Exports in Tamil Nadu. I am ecstatic that after nearly 20 years of trading relationships and community involvement in India, we have finally opened The Body Shop stores here, " said Roddick.

The second community trade partner in India since 1996 for the brand is Trade Alternative Reforms Projects (TARA Projects), which supports its members and producer communities to produce and market their handicrafts in an equitable fashion.

Over the years TARA has supplied Body Shop soapstone oil burners, seasonal ranges of mosaic glass mirrors and decorative hair accessories made from metal, glass, beads and enamel.

In India, Anita is also scouting around for other grassroots community work to support. She mentions the Indian Resource Centre, which is involved with reclaiming water for farmers and seems to be in search for others. "I always called myself head of the department of the future," she says.

However, for the business community, Roddick could have valuable learnings to impart.

As an entrepreneur, her basic premise is that "it is obsession that drives the entrepreneur's commitment to a vision of something new." But to that Anita always adds the riders such as sustainable, ethical, meaningful and that's what makes her different as a business leader. At one of the conferences in Britain she had said exactly that: " My vision, my hope, is simply this: that many business leaders will come to see a primary role of business as incubators of the human spirit.

The business of business should not be just about money, it should be about responsibility, it should be about public good, not private greed." Something she has tried to pursue with The Body Shop and wants to continue in the future.

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