51: Rediscovering Eden: Upending the World Order with Sir Tim Smit

About this episode
What do you do when your desire to change the world seems at odds with capitalism? Sir Tim Smit pulls back the curtains on the perception of a contradictory world that is actually not so contradictory at all. He shares the lessons and mistakes that can transform an organization from ordinary to extraordinary, and it all has to do with mutually beneficial partnerships. “If you can't do the whole job, you could end up doing a lot of damage.” So how do you make sure you can do the whole job?

About Sir Tim Smit

Sir Timothy Bartel Smit KBE is a Dutch-born British businessman is best known for his achievements in Cornwall and for writing the book The Lost Gardens of Heligan, winner of the 1997 Book of the Year. He and John Nelson restored the gardens, which are now one of the UK’s best loved gardens and named “Garden of the Year” by BBC Countryfile Awards (Mar 2018).  

Tim started work as an archaeologist before taking an unexpected leap into the music business, working as both a songwriter and producer receiving seven platinum and gold discs. 

Tim is currently the Executive Vice-Chair and Co-founder of the multi award-winning Eden Project in Cornwall. Since its opening in 2001, over 22 million people have come to see a once-sterile pit turned into a cradle of life containing world-class horticulture and startling architecture, symbolic of human endeavour.  He dreamt up and created the Eden Project, near St Austell, an £80 million initiative to build two transparent biomes in an old china clay pit near the village of Bodelva, which is said to have contributed over £1 billion into the Cornish economy. Tim is also Executive Co-Chair for Eden Project International, which aims to have an Eden Project on every habited continent by 2025. 

Key points

• The pandemic has exacerbated but also highlighted and accelerated necessary changes in how we interact with our environment.
• Long-term partnerships - that are mutually beneficial - are the key to sustained growth and opportunities that can truly make a difference.
• The Eden Project is more than just building pretty gardens, there are deep, social and philosophical, reasons for why it has been developing scientifically the way it has.
• The key to upending the status quo when it comes to clean air and water for all is having difficult conversations that really examine why capitalism and moral bankruptcy are falsely equated.
• Some of the difficult conversations are unintentional consequences of oversimplifying complex issues as “good” or “bad”
• Sir Tim Smit lists his favourite people and books that discuss intelligent approaches to understanding how the world should work, and how it was working before intervention that was backed by greed and self-interest. 

Time stamps

[4:18] The social impact of pandemic and lockdowns

[12:14] What is the difference between investment and impact investment?

[14:01] The Garden Festival, and how it helped Sir Tim Smit build the Eden Project

[15:59] How Sir Tim Smit defines true impact investing

[24:21] Words matter! How a “good” word like ‘farm’ presents limitations and places a cap on opportunities

[30:48] How does capitalism translate to good moral behaviour?

[39:20] What is community? Do you define it by map lines or by social behaviour?

[43:50] What education