Tim Smit is very well known in Britain as the man who founded the Eden Project, Cornwall – a £140 million botanical theme park housed in a series of geodesic domes.

But the first project that brought him to the public’s attention was ‘The Lost Gardens of Heligan’ – a 200 acre estate dating from 1780. A former musician and music producer, Tim decided he wanted to change his life and moved to Cornwall. He found an overgrown and derelict estate at Heligan and decided to restore it. With the help of an army of enthusiastic volunteers he transformed the gardens into one of the most popular garden destinations in Britain, with 400,000 people now visiting each year. 

“They key to Heligan’s success was that we told the story from the perspective of ordinary people. We didn’t use any Latin or talk about Lords and Ladies as they usually do with this kind of thing. The most interesting building was the toilet because the people who used it in the past wrote their names on the wall. It was all about storytelling.”

Tim’s next project was truly epic in scale. Inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle’s story ‘The Lost World’ he wanted to transform mid-Cornwall’s “moonscape of old mines and slagheaps” into a botanical centre, literally making things grow from a quarry-like desert. At 57 metres high, the largest geodesic dome is big enough to house a rainforest that grows to full height.

“I started out with the idea that there wasn’t much point doing it unless it was the best in the world. I persuaded a lot of people to come together and contribute their talent and intelligence and spoke very charmingly and aggressively to civil servants, asking them what they wanted to see on their tombstones. Did they want to be losers?”

Tim’s inimitable techniques of persuasion resulted in a tourist attraction that is estimated to have contributed £1 billion to the struggling Cornish economy. “We insist on local sourcing and offer long-term contracts to our suppliers”, he said. “We try to be waste neutral and insist our suppliers do the same. We use capitalism as a weapon for social good.”

It was a measure of Tim Smit’s rhetorical power that delegates remained enthralled by what he had to say despite major problems with the Skype connection during his talk with conference programme organiser, David Barrie. At times it sounded like they were both talking under water.

Replying to the question ‘What is social enterprise?’ Tim said: “When ‘social good’ is mentioned people start talking in a library hush like social workers. But it’s the most exciting corporate enterprise. The fundamental flaw with companies that have shareholders is that their main duty is to maximise profits, when this isn’t necessarily the best thing for the business in the long-term. A social enterprise is a structure that enables a company to have flexibility over what is considered profit.”

Tim’s advice to delegates was to make sure that their projects were backed by passionate champions. Without that commitment they were likely to fail. He also encouraged people to think big. “Doing something big and risky makes people concentrate a lot more”, he said.

If people listen too much to accountants and lawyers they’ll never take necessary risks. For example, in July 2004 the Eden Project took the decision to maintain the site as an all-year-round attraction and keep employing the staff instead of laying them off over the winter. They built the country’s biggest outdoor ice rink against advice and ended up attracting 150,000 visitors and making a profit.