• The Guardian, Tuesday, September 11, 2007 12:30 PM

Dame Anita Roddick--who combined a passion for social change with a nose for business to become one of the leading figures in the environmental movement--suffered a brain hemorrhage Sunday evening and died at the age of 64. A child of Italian migrants, Roddick said her sense of justice was stirred by reading a book about the Holocaust at the age of 10.

Roddick opened her first Body Shop in Brighton, England, in 1976 with the help of a £4,000 loan, hoping to provide some income while her husband was abroad. She had no training or business acumen, she said, but had decided that the products should be natural, sold in reusable containers and bear handwritten labels.

Her innovation chimed with the emergence of a global green consciousness. In 1984, when it floated on the London Stock Exchange, the Body Shop was valued at £8m, but that rapidly rose to £300m. By 2004, the chain had more than 77 million customers across the globe and was the second most trusted brand in the UK.

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