Dame Anita Roddick, who has died of a brain haemorrhage aged 64, was the founder of The Body Shop cosmetics chain who went on to use her influence, wealth and fame to campaign for a range of ethical and environmental issues.

Campaigning businesswoman; Born October 23, 1942; Died September 10, 2007.

Dame Anita Roddick, who has died of a brain haemorrhage aged 64, was the founder of The Body Shop cosmetics chain who went on to use her influence, wealth and fame to campaign for a range of ethical and environmental issues while always insisting "businesses have the power to do good".

She was born in the south-coast town of Littlehampton to Jewish-Italian immigrant parents and claimed her background made her a natural outsider with a strong moral conscience that was awoken after she read a book on the Holocaust in the early 1950s.

Roddick trained as a teacher at Bath College of Higher Education (now Bath Spa University), then travelled extensively, eventually working in the women's rights department of the International Labour Organisation, in Geneva.

On her return to England, her mother, who ran a cafe, introduced her to a Scot named Gordon Roddick. The couple, in her words, bonded "instantly" and before long had opened first a restaurant, and then a hotel in Littlehampton. They married in 1970.

Roddick opened her first Body Shop in 1976 in Brighton. The first shop was basic and sold only 15 lines; she joked the chain's trademark green colour came about by accident because it was the only paint that could cover the mould.

Her business ethics were inspired in part by women's beauty rituals that she discovered while travelling in developing countries and lessons from closer to home that her mother passed on. She wrote: "Why waste a container when you can refill it? And why buy more of something than you can use? We behaved as she did in the Second World War: we re-used everything, we refilled everything and we recycled all we could."

She claimed she started the business to create a livelihood while Gordon was trekking across the Americas. Roddick had no business training and described the first year as "survival". She said: "Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it's about trading, buying and selling. It's about creating a product or service so good that people will pay for it."

It would not have happened without the financial assistance of used-car salesman Ian McGlinn who, in 1977, dug deep into his pockets to find the £4000 Roddick needed to open her second Body Shop in Brighton. Her bank rejected a request for a loan because it did not believe her idea to sell eco-friendly beauty products in recyclable bottles was viable.

Scots-born McGlinn lived in a two-bedroom flat in Sussex. He was happy to be a sleeping partner and let Roddick and Gordon run the business. In return, Roddick gave him half the company.

McGlinn, 68, is now in the top 30 of the Sunday Times Rich List, having made £137m from his 21% share when The Body Shop was sold to L'Oreal for £652.3m in March last year. He lives in Monaco.

By 1991, The Body Shop had 700 branches and Roddick was awarded the 1991 World Vision Award for Development Initiative Award. Thirteen years later, it boasted 1980 stores and was voted the second most trusted brand in the UK.

In 1996, the store presented the European Union with a petition of four million names against animal testing.

Roddick said that she had contracted hepatitis C through a blood transfusion while giving birth in 1971. She made the announcement after becoming the patron of the British charity Hepatitis C Trust.

She died at St Richard's Hospital, Chichester, with husband Gordon and daughters Sam and Justine at her side.