Everyone involved in climate change and sustainability – from scientists to politicians and business leaders – needed to go out and get ‘dirt under their fingernails’ to understand the key issues, Eden Project co-founder Sir Tim Smit said during a speech in Bristol.
Because of this lack of understanding, the Government was failing to respect science while large corporations were simply posing as green, he said in his address to Rathbone Greenbank’s Annual Investors Day, part of Bristol’s Big Green Week.
The Government was also treating the symptoms of the global threat rather than the problem itself. 
In a speech that veered from comic to serious, he said there was a need to “rob back the hippy thoughts” about the environment and turn these into real action.
Scientists needed to get out of their laboratories and see what was really happening while businesses also needed to address the real issues.
“Businesses need a dirt under the fingernails mentality,” he said.
“We need to be bolder in our decision making, have strong commercial understanding and, most importantly, there’s got to be part of our souls that isn’t for sale.”
Sir Tim, pictured, executive vice chair of the Eden Project, which opened in 2003 and whose iconic biodomes house indoor rainforests, was keynote speaker at the event at At-Bristol, which brought together organisations and individuals to encourage action and improve the environment.
Other speakers at the event on similar topics from their business view were;
• Juliet Davenport. CEO and founder of sustainable energy group Good Energy
• John David. Head of Rathbone Greenbank Investments
• Merlin Hyman. Chief executive of Regen SW
• Joanna Lewis. Assistant director, strategy, at Bristol-based Soil Association and Food for Life Partnership
• Nick Sturge. Centre director of innovation hub SETsquared Bristol
