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Retail Store Management

Notes
Our trading principles reflect our core values. We aim to ensure that human and civil
rights, as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are respected throughout
our business activities. We will establish a framework on this declaration to include
criteria for workers’ rights embracing a safe, healthy working environment, fair wages,
no discrimination on the basis of race, creed, sex or sexual orientation, or physical coercion
of any kind.
We will support long term sustainable relationships with communities in need. We will
pay special attention to those minority groups, women and disadvantaged peoples who
are socially and economically marginalised.
We will use environmentally sustainable resources wherever technically and economically
viable. Our purchasing will be based on a system of screening and investigation of the
ecological credentials of our finished products, ingredients, packaging and suppliers.
We will promote animal protection throughout our business activities. We are against
animal testing in the cosmetics and toiletries industry. We will not test ingredients or
products on animals, nor will we commission others to do so on our behalf. We will use
our purchasing power to stop suppliers animal testing.
We will institute appropriate monitoring, auditing and disclosure mechanisms to ensure
our accountability and demonstrate our compliance with these principles.

Stakeholders
Traditional economic theory suggests that the primary reason for a company’s existence is
to expand its profitable business. Assessing the company’s performance becomes simply
a question of comparing profit levels with forecasts and targets. The owners’ prime objective
is to maximise their wealth. The Body Shop, however, has been at the forefront of a
growing number of companies who recognise that there are a number of different groups
in society with an interest in its performance. These different groups, or stakeholders,
may have different priorities. The way the business operates affects them and their
expectations may influence the way a company sets its objectives and how it seeks to
achieve them.
The Body Shop believes that it should be open and honest in its business dealings and first
committed itself in 1991 to an active programme of ethical auditing. This has come to
include:

a social audit
an environmental audit
an animal protection audit
Employees

The Body Shop directly employs 2,500 staff at the Headquarters in Littlehampton and all
company-owned facilities and shops in the UK. The employees’ aspirations include job
security and diversity, a fair income, promotion and training opportunities. Workers’
rights, including a safe, healthy working atmosphere, fair wage rates and no discrimination
on the grounds of race, gender, creed or sexual orientation are set out in The Body Shop
Trading Charter. Senior managers must run the organisation in such a way as to satisfy the
different groups of stakeholders. This may not be easy and conflicts of interest may develop.
Priorities may have to be agreed and compromises made. The managers’ jobs may be
made harder as the different stakeholders’ objectives may change over time according to
how the firm is performing.
Contd....

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