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Wednesday July 25 03:17 PM EDT

The world would be better if more companies shared Anita Roddick's business agenda. The Body Shop's feisty founder has built a company dedicated to improving social and environmental conditions, and takes a rogue's pleasure in saying "up your bum" to institutions that call for maximum profits.

Now let's cut right to the skepticism, because there's plenty of it. After all, we've seen companies like Ford, Shell and Monsanto's greenwashing tactics that paint an eco-friendly face on scandalous business practices. We've seen business leaders publicly uphold responsibility, then practice balance sheet worship behind board room doors. And we've seen the rise of cause marketing, where consumers' desire for positive change is parleyed into branding, loyalty and profits.

Roddick has faced the resulting skepticism from competitors, media, and anyone made curious by a business that sometimes appears to treat third world strangers better than shareholders. But she is no profiteering spin doctor. Her pioneering efforts began before what she calls the "sultans of sleaze" jumped on the PR wagon. She has outlasted or disproved her accusers, and left behind a track record of humanitarian achievement most activists, let alone CEOs, would dream of. What began in 1976 in Brighton, U.K., as one shop selling a handful of natural products in urine sample bottles has become a $170 million global powerhouse that sells a product every 0.4 seconds. Through this staggering growth, she has continued to do an exquisite thing - build a company whose practices improve the world.

This takes a complete redefining of business success, starting at the bottom line. "This repeated myth that the bottom line is only about the

accumulation of money, is so pathetic it doesn't even bear describing," Roddick says. "I don't want a bottom line that says, 'It is valid for your company ... To bring in products made with sweat shop or child labor just because it can increase the financial bottom line.' That will make me in my terms a criminal."

Her message echoes E.F. Schumaker's notion of natural capital in his 1974 book Small is Beautiful. Basically, Schumaker said if we don't put environmental concerns on the balance sheet, we don't know if a company is creating value or taking it away. The Body Shop went further and added social impact to the list, creating a CPA-defying triple bottom line of profit, social impact and environmental impact.

The result is a different business outlook from the 90% of companies whose mission statement goads them to "satisfy the customer" to the

point where they'll just hand over their wallet. A glance at The Body Shop's annual report shows this unique dichotomy - a summary of

inventory turnover and gross profit is adjacent to a quote on human progress from Roddick's WTO address in Seattle in 1999.

But Roddick claims that's as it should be. "When you look at businesses as being the most powerful institution in society, more powerful than a Church, more powerful than politics ... if you don't have a moral imperative or a sympathy for everything you do now in business, God help us all."

Building A Responsible Business

Through a combination of awareness, communication and evaluation, The Body Shop has created a culture of global responsibility, enforcing Roddick's notion that change is simply a matter of choice: "Business isn't found in nature. Business was not deemed by God." She

says. "It is made and shaped by you and me, by human beings. That's why it's subject to change." It all begins with awareness. Roddick is a self-confessed story-teller. She traveled extensively when young, and brought back exotic tales of each lotion and soap she stocked. She used her products to share awareness of the injustices she had seen. This goal is built into the franchise. Shops are called "action stations", and use labels, bulletin boards, ad campaigns and informed salespeople to teach shoppers about the products they are buying and the communities that purchase will influence.

All this awareness translates into a strict trading charter. The Body Shop's new manufacturing partners must undertake a full social, environmental and animal audit and new suppliers must complete a questionnaire covering similar issues. Communication of goals and progress is a key component, and Roddick admits this is an area where The Body Shop faltered. She regrets stopping a weekly video sent to all shops around the world that talked about company values and the current campaigns. "I've learned that the bigger you grow the less intimate you become, therefore you have to fashion communications into a style that feels as intimate as being belly to belly." Finally, regular evaluation helps ensure your goals are being achieved. To ensure the survival of company values, Roddick helped establish the company's values audit every two years. The audit poses different questions to The Body Shop stakeholders that help assess their social and environmental practices to see if they match the company's mission. From the start, "it was a painful process. Roddick says. "Some of it delighted us and some of it highly embarrassed us."

"But you learn by a series of checks and balances ... looking back and being reflective, 'how have we done? Are we doing better?' You can't just get an audit process that says, 'By the way, you are really not good at this,' and do nothing about it. So you have to institutionalize the process of change."

It will take this type of constant scrutiny to ensure The Body Shop's bottom line(s) stay on target, a task made tougher for Roddick since she stepped down from the CEO position in 1998. But as co-chair for the company, and propelled by her belief that "A woman in advancing old age is unstoppable by any Earthly force", she may maintain enough grass roots appeal to keep the The Body Shop in good shape.

Anita Roddick

Title: Co-chair and founder

Company: The Body Shop

Product: Cosmetics

Headquarters: Littlehampton, West Sussex, U.K.

2000 Sales: $520 million

Education: B.A., Newton Park College of Education

Natural Capitalism: Minding the Earth's Business