According to his blog, All Roads Lead to China. But for me, when developing my road map of who’s who in the sustainability scene in Shanghai, all roads led to Richard Brubaker.
Like many who came to China, Richard first arrived to seek out career opportunities as China’s economy gathered steam. In pursuing those goals he developed market entry and distribution strategies for firms who were also looking for China-based opportunities.
Soon after arriving in Shanghai, Richard developed his first community enterprise HandsOn Shanghai (now HandsOn China) as a means to promote, develop, and manage volunteerism in China. This endeavor soon opened him up to the human side of the economic engine that was fueling China’s growth, ultimately leading him to develop platforms that examine issues relating to sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Currently, as the Managing Director of Collective Responsibility and a Visiting Professor of Sustainability at the China Europe International Business School, Richard is focused on building platforms that promote long term organizational capacity to address the economic, environmental, and social hurdles that China faces as the country’s economic growth accelerates.
As if that wasn’t enough, Richard also launched Cleaner Greener China to highlight the environmental challenges that China faces. The blog spotlights people and companies involved in developing sustainable solutions.
Richard has been living in Shanghai for 8.5 years (aka 64 dog/Shanghai years), and quickly summed up why he likes working in China: “You have the ability to get shit done.” From the above description, you can tell it would be easier to write a book rather than a blog post about Richard so, for the sake of brevity, I opted to focus this piece on volunteerism in China and HandsOn Shanghai. Richard is an affable character. Our conversation consisted of a barrage of straight talk and joke telling (had I not had a severe case of jetlag, I might have been able to tell a few jokes in return).
Richard explained why he founded HandsOn,
“I wanted to volunteer, I couldn’t find a place, so I had to build it. I had no idea what it was going to be when I first started, it was just supposed to be a little club of people. And then it just snowballed, and now we are in three cities with full time staff.”
What started out as a “club” now has 7,500 volunteers with 180 volunteer project managers, nine full time staff, and a fleet of interns.
Sounds impressive, but even more so when you stop and realized that NGO’s and nonprofits are still a relatively new addition to China’s work force.
“When I first arrived here NGOs were underground. Their style was about confrontation (social issues) not about collaborating to solve them. You need to understand, the state took care of everything: hospitals, doctors, education, marriage, children. But that all changed in the past 15 years, so there is now a shift from grassroots NGOs being only focused advocacy (and pointing to problems) as their sole mission to building program based solutions that are at times offering a valuable service back to the government.”
Richard is now turning his focus toward corporate responsibility, so stay tuned for Part 2 of Richard’s profile (later in the week). For you info hounds you may want to follow Richard on Twitter at: China CSR and Greener China
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Tags: allroads lead to china, china, cleaner greener china, collective responsibility, CSR, Green, HandsOn China, HandsOn Shanghai, richard brubaker, sustainability
[...] ***Part 4: Does One Rotten Apple Ruin the Supply Chain? Yes. Think Suicide When You Look at Your PDA. Interesting interview with Richard Brubaker a corporate responsibility expert in Shanghai~ and fascinating introduction into the realm of the supply chain. It doesn’t sound sexy~ but you don’t know what you’re missing. Meanwhile: to see a full profile on Richard Brubaker you can check out the post on What Gives. [...]
Leah – would love to cross post these on HandsOn Blog and link back. Let me know if that's cool with you.
Best,
@HeyJK