There has been a big dispute about L’Oreal buying over The Body Shop. L’Oreal is a globally recognized cosmetic company where else The Body Shop always remained to be an animal-friendly brand. But personally, I don’t find a big problem with the buy-over. No matter how what are the moral ground of a person is, everything in the world has a price.
If your house is worth $200.000 and you got married in that same house, you kids grew up there, your late grandma lived there, the house has great feng shui, so on and so forth. If someone offered you $1.000.000, would you sell the house? What about $5.000.000? No? Then $10.000.000. There is always an amount that one cannot turn down. The matter is only to know what that amount is.
Back to the case study. Ethics can only be defined within a person’s judgement. The Americans find it common that they don’t support their parents when they grow old. The Chinese feel that this is unethical. Chinese find it common to live with their parents until they get married. The Americans find this unethical. You get the drill.
What I am trying to say here, is even ethics have a price. One cannot judge another just by the ethics the latter practices. The Body Shop always remained the image of “no to animal testing”. But one must also think about – are these just the marketing strategy? Because the brand originated from UK; and the UK mentality is always against animal testing. So that was a good starting ground for the company to develop market share in the local market.
Now L’Oreal. I personally believe that L’Oreal DO NOT conduct animal testing. At least not in terms of legal entities. Usually these tests are conducted by third party laboratories. L’Oreal is not stupid enough to conduct animal testing under their own company name. Therefore, the company has no right to question how the third party conduct the tests. The other thing, one must also think – if the tests are not conducted on animals, where are they supposed to conduct the tests??? On third world’s children???
So, below are some questions and my answers.
1. Was it ethical for the Body Shop shareholders to sell to L’Oreal when L’Oreal’s policy for animal testing was the opposite of the Body Shop’s policy?
I would say YES. Only through a global organization can The Body Shop reach out further to the world and promote the “no animal testing” concept. One can also think about The Body Shop like Jesus Christ; where he sacrificed himself in order to save the world (so to speak). By selling it to L’Oreal, The Body Shop can also help them realise the fad on animal rights and this could be the first step for L’Oreal to go animal-friendly.
2. Was it ethical for animal rights groups to call for a boycott of Body Shop products based only on future possibly unethical conduct, where the current conduct is ethical?
I say NO. If they boycott the Body Shop, they may allow L’Oreal to feel and think that this concept is unprofitable and therefore drop the concept. From then on, the Body Shop is no longer animal-friendly and may disappear from the market.
One must look on the bright side and see that a global company would like to adapt to the animal-friendly concept. It is more cost effective to buy over an existing company and study it rather than starting it from scrap.
