Richard Adams

Richard John Adams (born 28 October 1946) is a British businessman and social entrepreneur. He is the founder of the UK fair trade organisations Tearcraft and Traidcraft and of a number of social enterprises which promote environmentally responsible and ethical business.

Early life and education Adams attended King Edward VI Five Ways school in Birmingham. He has degrees in sociology (St John's College, Durham University), theology (University of London) and business administration (Newcastle University). He received an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law in 2005 from Newcastle University and one from Durham University in 2007. He also holds a National Licensee's Certificate for on-licensed premises.

Career After visiting small farmers in Gujarat, India, in 1973 Adams established Agrofax Labour Intensive Products, an agricultural imports company in London with distribution to the main wholesale markets.

In 1994 Adams founded the Creative Consumer Co-operative, through which Out of this World, Britain's first chain of organic grocery stores with an explicit ethical, fair trade, social and environmental agenda, were launched. In 2000 he co-founded the Warm Zone programme to combat fuel poverty and in 2006 was appointed as a non-executive director of Newcastle upon Tyne NHS Primary Care Trust and in 2010 was appointed Chair of Newcastle and North Tyneside Community Health (NHS). and was a Trustee of the energy policy think-tank, Sustainability First. He chairs the board of directors of the Fair Trade Advocacy Office in Brussels.

Honours Adams is a visiting fellow of St John's College, Durham and a visiting professor at Northumbria University. In the 2001 New Year Honours, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for services to the promotion of ethical trading". He won the New Statesman Social Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2005 and in 2006 was listed by The Independent newspaper as one of the top 50 people in the UK who had had most impact in "making the world a better place" for his development of the concept of ethical shopping.