Csr at Body Shop

Q1. Visit the website of the body Shop and trace the background of CSR initiatives taken by the company.

Ans. Businesses have the power to do good. That’s why The Body Shop’s Mission Statement opens with the overriding commitment, ‘To dedicate our business to the pursuit of social and environmental change.’ They use their stores and products to help communicate human rights and environmental issues.

Some of the CSR initiatives taken by Body Shop are :

Campaingn against Shell : In 1993, Anita Roddick met a delegation of Ogoni people from Nigeria. They were seeking justice and reparations against the giant oil multinational Shell that was ravaging their lands through oil exploration and production. Working with other NGOs, Body Shop turned their campaign into an international cause celebre. Tragically, the Ogoni’s key spokesperson, Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 other Ogoni, were executed in 1995 by the Nigerian Government. But their campaign continued and eventually 19 other imprisoned Ogoni were released. In 1997, after 4 years of unrelenting pressure, Shell issued a revised operating charter committing the company to human rights and sustainable development. A year later, they launched their ‘Profits and Principles’ advertising campaign declaring their recognition of the interests of ‘ a much wider group of stakeholders in business’. Hence, Body Shop played a huge role in getting Shell to think about what it really means to be a corporate citizen.

Campaign against Esso : In September 2001, The Body Shop joined hands with an organisation named Greenpeace, and many thousands of other organisations and individual consumers in an international campaign against Exxon-Mobil (Esso), the world’s largest oil and gas company, and ‘No 1 Global Warming Villain’. This is the company that refuses to accept a direct link between the burning of fossil fuels and global warming, and that has turned its back on investing even a single penny on renewable alternatives, such as wind...