Getting ingredients and treating local people fairly

Everyone must know who Anita Roddick is. She is a social activist who, then, a founder of The Body Shop, a second largest cosmetic company. It has about 2400 stores in 61 countries. Of course, it’s not easy to provide raw materials to cater all the need of product distribution.

Most of the products from The Body Shop are made out of natural ingredients. Body Shop has been using, for example, Aloe Vera, coconut oil, banana, and shea nut (I really love the last one). Then, I think where do they get the raw materials from? Click on this and you will find that many raw materials are from places around the world. Next, in terms of public relations perspective, The Body Shop forms community partnerships (which I believe it is another words for CSR) with local community in efforts to get the finest raw materials. That’s why, Body shop can get Guatemalan Aloe Vera and Polynesian coconut oil, other ingredients.

The Body Shop tries to position its brand to focus on social issues in which Anita Roddick has been trying to reinforce. And in this context, it appears on the values of the organisation and one of them is to support community trade. The company tries to promote fair trading for marginalised communities (especially in Third World countries) by guarantying a fair price for the top quality of natural ingredients. So, the firm partners with local farmers and activates their participation (skills) in producing their own resources.

I think this is a good strategy. The company is not solely focussing on exploiting natural resources in order to produce the finest cosmetic products to continue selling, but it facilitates and encourages local communities (especially the expert local farmers) to explore their own natural resources by its community trade campaign. The company tries to build a sustainable quality exchange, not only by treating local farmers with respect and dignity but also giving them with a fair long-term wage. The benefit will then improve the lives of community. Although, there is a controversy saying that this program is human exploitation, but I would say, it is better than just exploiting natural resources from one place without allowing local people to get something from their own land and treating them fairly. It’s like stealing people’s wealth. So in this case, The Body Shop has attempted to source responsibly. Don’t you think?