Date published: 2008/04/23
Tim Smit gave the sixth talk in the 6th Annual Lecture Series in Sustainable Development. His title was "Delivering Sustainable Development at the Eden Project", but he didn't really talk about that at all, except obliquely.
Smit first came to prominence while working on the so-called Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall, but really became famous because of his work on the nearby Eden Project starting in 1995. It is now one of the UK's top tourist attractions. You could easily view it as just a glorified greenhouse, but needless to say it has pretense to be more than that, in particular somehow to be promoting the environment.
Smit gave his talk without Powerpoint and indeed without notes. He just talked straight for 50 minutes (he called it a "conversation" but it was not), and then answered some questions at the end. He is clearly bright and enthusiastic and inspirational (easily the best speaker ever in the Sustainable Development series), and he could no doubt make his living giving this kind of speaking engagement to corporations and organisations up and down the country. (Indeed, he seems to actually do this to some extent.) You can easily imagine him writing one of those "how to succeed in business" books that litter airport departure bookstores.
He started off by saying that "sustainability" and "biodiversity" were two words that put people off, which is perhaps why he didn't talk about the former (or indeed the latter). Well, "sustainability" perhaps puts people off because it's meaningless jargon (except that it usually means that people who drive or fly are allegedly evil). And it's not clear why Smit claimed that "biodiversity" puts people off. Perhaps what he meant is that ordinary people don't like the academic middle class constantly shoving guilt trips in their face (especially when it is the academic middle class who consume much more resources than ordinary people do).
Smit has obviously been very successful raising money for the Eden Project, so speaks with great confidence (in the same way that people who gamble and win on the stock market or at the races do). "Trust your instinct" seemed to be his mantra. He claimed that he had gotten so far because he:
His management style seems to be based on the ideas of Ricardo Semler of Semco in Brazil. Which means there is not much in the way of management at all. Smit kept referring to his views on this, and related topics, as "hippie shit", but he meant that it wasn't really that, it's just that many people might view it as that.
So he views himself not just as an entrepreneur, but as a "social" entrepreneur. And he was claiming (so presumably believes) that this "utopian" vision was the way forward for the world. Well, there have been many people over the years who have said the same kind of thing. It's attractive to a certain type of person (basically the academic middle class) but has never been sustainable (that dreadful word again) because it never pans out in the long run. When you have 500 employees you can be a benevolent dictator. It's harder with 6 billion people.
Along this line, he believes the world could consume a lot less in the way of resources if only it organised itself better. So, as one example, he said it was crazy for everyone in Purley to own a lawnmower to mow their (not huge) lawn. (Presumably Purley was chosen because it is one of those suburbs that the academic middle class constantly like to denigrate.) It would be far better for there to be one lawnmower. Unfortunately Smit did not say how he was going to organise the use of that one lawnmower. And funnily enough, in some rich neighbourhoods in the States (for example) there is only one lawnmower because no homeowner would be seen dead mowing their own lawn so they hire some company to do it. No doubt the same "lawnmower" argument can be made to say it is far better to have one bus than thirty cars. Or how about one washing machine? Hey, everybody used to have to go out to the laundromat. Those were the good old days, eh.
And also along this line, Smit proffered the slightly bizarre claim that in 30 or 40 years there would no longer be big private companies because allegedly all the management would see the error of their ways and instead want to do their own thing (presumably in social enterprises). Well, it's possible that in 30 or 40 years there will no longer be big private companies because the human population has been decimated for some reason or other. But otherwise, this is a rather fanciful notion. Of course Smit can easily make such claims because even in the 99.9999999% probability that it will not happen, in 30 or 40 years nobody will care or even remember that he predicted it, and in the unlikely 0.0000001% probability that it does happen, he can claim he was a genius all along for predicting it.
Smit briefly touched on the issues of energy security (he seems to believe it is crazy for any country to import any of its energy) and food security (he seems to believe it is crazy for any country to import any of its food). On the latter point, he claimed that the UK only has 4 days of supply of food at any moment in time, so if the electricity went off for a week (say) then the world would end (riots in the street, etc.). Well, most people have more than 4 days supply of (non-perishable) food at home, so that was rather over-stated. The academic middle class have never accepted the idea of globalisation, although it is correct that security of supply is something that is difficult to monetise.
Smit is evidently full of ideas and it will be interesting in future to see how many of them pan out. The audience certainly found his talk to be very inspirational, and needless to say, that is the foremost requirement of a leader trying to take you somewhere.
_________________________________________________________
All material not included from other sources is copyright cambridge2000.com.
For further information or questions email: info [at] cambridge2000 [dot] com
(replace "[at]" with "@" and "[dot]" with ".").