An immense “estate”

Since its first purchase of Alfriston Clergy House in 1896, the Trust has expanded to the point where it now manages over 700 miles of coastline, 612,000 acres of land and over 200 buildings, gardens and monuments. But its very success as national guardian of this vast estate has tended to obscure another aspect of the Trust’s work, one that is possibly even more important than its headline mission – and one in which it is equally as successful. As befits an organization whose patron is the Prince of Wales, the Trust has become one of the driving forces behind the move towards rural regeneration, and it is here that the Trust makes its greatest impact on national life.

Not just a pretty place

The Trust is, in its own words, “more than just a pretty place” and last year alone it invested £160,000,000 in the nation’s environmental infrastructure. However, nothing exists in a vacuum and the Trust is crucially aware that a conserved countryside depends on the vitality of local communities, and its policies are designed to bring a wide range of benefits to help and support local communities in those areas where it is active.

Benefiting local communities and providing training

One of the most basic requirements for a community to thrive is a buoyant local economy, and wherever the Trust is active, its presence acts as a major stimulus to the economy in that area. The Trust supports a large amount of employment both directly and indirectly. In Norfolk alone the Trust employs over 300 people, and while some of those will be people who have moved into the area to take up a job with the Trust, the vast majority of those employed are from local communities.

In its day to day operations the Trust needs skilled craftspeople in a variety of disciplines, but it is also active in several commercial sectors such as tourism, retail, property management and catering; and these also require people with a variety of skills. As well as employing people with pre-existing skills, under its ‘Careership’ program, the Trust has established direct links with a number of colleges, and actively seeks people with the right qualities to train in the skills it needs.

The Trust was a firm believer in ‘localism’ long before it became a political buzzword, and this is reflected in its policy to seek wherever possible to purchase goods and services local to its centres of operation. This policy acts as a stimulus to local economies, bringing further employment and helping to sustain business diversity within the area. As a social enterprise itself, the Trust will always look favourably on other social enterprises but, as Simon Garnier pointed out, the Trust has to be run as a business and at the end of the day, hard-headed commercial considerations have to take priority. Any social enterprise tendering to supply goods or services to the Trust has to be equally commercially hard-headed and professional in their approach.

The environment is central

Care and improvement of the environment is central to the Trust’s work and on its own estates it pursues a rigorous policy of environmental best practice. The success of this policy can be seen in the results. Each region has a dedicated member of staff whose remit is to encourage the Trust’s tenant farmers to turn organic, offering help and advice during the changeover period. As a result of this, over 7% of the Trust’s farms are farmed organically, compared to the national average of 4%.

The Trust also actively seeks solutions to some of the pressing environmental problems we face.  At its Sheringham Park estate, visitors can see and use the latest water conservation techniques. Every drop of rain-water is harvested from the buildings and collected for use in plant propagation and flushing toilets; urinals are of a new waterless type and an underground sewage treatment plant is designed to discharge clean water.

The Trust sees education as a vital component of its environmental work. As well as working with schools, it also offers adult training and many of those who have been through its conservation courses go on to start projects of their own.

The Trust’s influence extends well beyond its own estates and nearby communities. For example, Simon Garnier also sits on the East of England Environment Forum, a body composed of both statutory and voluntary organizations. There, as well as ensuring that the Trust’s input has effect, he also sits on the sub-committee responsible for the distribution of money from the European Social Fund for environmental projects across the region.

Lessons we can all learn

Although the National Trust is a large organization with an income running into hundreds of millions of pounds, there are lessons smaller enterprises can learn from its success. The first lesson is for any social enterprise to be successful, it has to be run as a business, and that means being commercially hard-headed and making difficult decisions. The next lesson that is equally as important is flexibility. In the 26 years that Simon Garnier has worked for the Trust it has changed completely, and more than once. Times and trading conditions change and any enterprise that is not flexible enough to change to meet the new conditions will not survive. There is one last thing that no social enterprise can afford to ignore – public perception. It is not only important for social enterprises to ‘do good’ in the public domain, it is equally as important for them to be seen to be ‘doing good’. It is public goodwill that gives social enterprises an edge over their purely commercial competitors, but that goodwill has to be fostered and nurtured.

The National Trust has been accused of being stuck in the dream of a bucolic past which never actually existed – but nothing could be further from the truth. The Trust seeks to learn the lessons of the past and to use them to solve the problems of today, and the success of this approach can be easily measured.

A major contribution

When the Trust is viewed through the lens of social accountability, it is clear that the contribution it makes to national life makes it a major force for progress in the nation. It has become as much of a national treasure as any of the treasures it so carefully looks after.