The Eden Project - Case Study Example

?Environmental Analysis of the Eden Project Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 PESTEL Analysis 3 Evaluation 6 Porter’s Value Chain 7 Value Creation by the Eden Project 8 Reference List 12 Introduction The Eden Project is the latest tourist attraction of Cornwall considering the importance of plants and the need to protect them for sustaining life on earth. The objective of the project is to collect plants from all parts of the world and create an environment to sustain them. In order to do so, there are two large geodesic zones have been erected. They are the largest of its kind with artificial climatic conditions that could sustain plants from all over Africa, Mediterranean climate and California (Bodelva, 2009). This project is the answer to the long-term problem of ecological issues and sustainable development with the objective to improve the relationship between plants and humans. The proposal of the project has received wide support from the world authorities as they wanted to improve the consciousness function. A project of this magnitude is bound to have economic and social implications. The aim of this paper is to provide an analysis of the Eden Project on the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental aspects and its implications on the management decisions. PESTEL Analysis Political: The political conditions of Cornwall are aligned with the rest of England, that is to say they are stable. The government had found the project to be both economically viable and commercially important. Cornwall can be categorized as a rural maritime county. The population of it stands around half a million. It is the second largest, in terms of size, of the counties in the region. The per capita GDP of the region was 69% of the EU average. The unemployment ratio of the place was also very high in the 90s (SWRDA, 2009). Economic: The Eden project can create a host of economic opportunities. These will not only include the direct revenues from the sale of products, but also the diversification of the lives of the people. The largest share of the revenue comes from the sale of the wildlife products in the international markets. However, the gross benefits do not comprise the entire picture. The cost of maintaining a community-based wildlife management can be high and can cut into the profits. The chief factor in determining the trade-off would be a cost-benefit analysis, which could clearly indicate whether the project will earn profits or losses (Wright and Charter, 2007). This however, is difficult as the computed costs are more of an abstract concept and can hardly be estimated accurately as the opportunity cost of land is quite unmanageable. Social: Any community-based wildlife management projects have very broad social implications. This is because there are both positive and negative externalities in this kind of project. The positive impacts of the project can be categorized under the broad heads namely impacts on individuals, impact on the institutions and impact on the culture as a whole. The impacts on the households can also be significant enough to lead to their empowerment. The experience of the institutions have revealed that there is need to either set up new institutions or strengthen the existing ones because the latter ones are too weak to tame such a project. There are two primary reasons behind this. Firstly, the management of the natural resources becomes difficult for them and secondly, the appropriate representation of the “interest groups” becomes tough due to a large number of conflicting interest groups involved in these projects. Therefore, capacity building and training are the precursors of the institutional strengthening. The primary requirement for this purpose is that the existing institutions form a strong network between them so that they can effectively manage the natural resources. The status impact includes the recognition by some administrative authority, thereby improving the plight of the underprivileged, which were previously denied certain rights that they deserved. The cultural impact of CWM projects are also significant as they can improve the knowledge among the indigenous communities about the traditional ecological knowledge, which in turn can improve the management practices that are adopted by them. The Cornwall wildlife trust had set up their objectives which implicitly state that the local economic development through the project will automatically improve the social and environmental aspects of the economy (Restormel Borough Council, n.d.). The negative externalities of the Eden project had also surfaced up as the work progressed. The most serious among these had been the conflict of the interest groups, the weakening of the authority and the rising issues of corruption (Dilys et al., 2000). Technological: The Eden project has come up with a very innovative solution to the problem of waste generation of the United Kingdom (Stokes, 2007). It has launched an approach known as the “Waste Neutral” approach, which aims to encourage the market of the recyclable waste and at the same time, alters the vision of U.K. citizens about waste in order to perceive it as a form of resource. For this purpose, it has installed the Neter-30 in vessel composter to convert food waste into resource. It was installed in 2005 on a pilot basis to examine the efficacy of the system. The Eden Group had published a report which clearly stated the advantages and disadvantages of such a technology and had been inviting investors to follow their suit. Legal: The taxes imposed on the visitors can bring in revenue for the government as tourism forms an important source of income for the county of Cornwall and this can make an effective contribution in raising the GDP (BBC, 2013). The project recently won a law suit against Ball, one of its directors, when he had claimed compensation for the use of his name (Rush and Ottley, 2006). Environmental: Considering the fact that Eden is an eco-tourism based project, it makes a decent attempt to promote its activities in the greenest way possible to minimize any adverse impact on the environment. The group conducts various charitable events worldwide to promote the awareness regarding the environmental impact. Since its inception, the project has been successful in providing quality environmental education to the locals and the tourists, who visit the Entertainment Park. The transport plan that has been devised by Eden Project minimizes its impact on the environment. This has been done with the motive of reducing the additional journey by motorized transport during the road congestion (SWRDA, 2009). Evaluation The Eden project has a wide range of commercial and investment opportunities that can be tapped by the managements in order to boost the economy of Cornwall and to transform the social life of the people. This can provide a host of opportunities to the business, government and personal market. Training packages can be introduced for the development of the individuals. Fields of biochemistry and nutrition can also improve the development of the Eden project. Investments can be made in developing nutritional packages to provide optimum nutrition to the individuals consuming them and later, when a domestic market is established for them, they can be exported to the foreign markets, thereby contributing to the local economy in terms of prosperity and improved standard of living. Even though the Eden Project has been established as a private enterprise, it can enjoy benefits if the government invests in the project and provides it the financial support for development. The present waste neutral strategy that has been adopted by the Eden Project can have the potential of inviting investments from various other firms which can improve the overall cost of neutralizing the waste. Porter’s Value Chain Michael porter for the first time introduced the concept of Value Chain in his influential book of 1985, the “Competitive Advantage”. This book had made significant contributions in understanding the ways for a business institution to create value for the customers. Porter’s model can be well explained in the form of a diagram as shown below (Recklies, 2001). Figure 1: Porter's Value Chain (Source: Recklies, 2001). Porter had proposed that every business has few common activities and with this perspective, he had categorized these activities into primary and support activities. The primary activities include the physical creation, sale, support and maintenance of the business and its components include inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales and service. These primary activities in a business require the various degrees of supports and the support activity captures these aspects. The dotted line in the figure indicates the relation that each primary activity shares with the support activities. The support activities are the ones which are important in the long-term success of the company. The infrastructure of the company, the procedure it follows for recruiting the management and its purchasing capabilities form a part of the support activities. Based on this framework, the Value Chain model of Porter has applications in almost every business proposition. The application of Porter’s value chain involves identifying the link between the sub-activities and the primary activity in a business, besides the link between the sub-activities and the support activity. In this context, it becomes important to describe the sub-activity. In any kind of business, the primary activity can have three different type of sub-activity namely direct activity, indirect activity and quality assurance. In the case of the support activity, the sub-activity has to be determined in the project in such a way that it creates value for the project in the primary activity (Magretta, 2012). Value Creation by the Eden Project In this background, this paper will now try to address the value that the Eden Project will create for the customers. Since its inception, the Eden project has become one of the major attractions for the tourists visiting Cornwall. This has happened mainly because of the unique concept of the project that aims at creating an eco-tourism themed park with the ambitious objective of connecting humans to the world of the plants. The project has been quite successful till date as it tops the list of six most visited tourist destinations of the United Kingdom. Humans can largely gain from the project because by visiting this park, they can understand that their sustainability and dependence rests in the effort made to protect the plant world. The values, which they imbibe from visiting the place, will not remain confined to the visit itself. They can apply their new-found knowledge of ecology in performing their duty towards the sustainable development of the earth. The project aims to achieve its objective by employing the entertaining methods of not only art and theatre, but also horticulture. The concept of “Waste neutral” that has been introduced in the Eden Project offers an innovative method of recycling waste that can also add value to the tourists who visit the park as well as the locals in general. The Eden Project has introduced an authentic concept of “reinvest”, apart from the three basic concepts, used to protect nature, reduce, reuse and recycle. These four pillars are extremely important for the sustainable development of our planet and create both direct and indirect values for the present and the future generations. In order to achieve this goal, the Waste Neutral Purchasing Forum was set up. The waste neutral project aims to improve the ecological balance of the earth. The most important contribution of the Eden Project has been to provide a boost to the local business by fuelling the growth of the tourists per year. The range of value creation by the project is vast because the number of agents involved includes visitors, businesses, investors and developers, local community, schools and public sector. Firstly, visitors can have themselves entertained in an educational way which will enrich their ecological knowledge and help to apply those ideas in their daily lives. Secondly, the project has contributed in ways to improve the tourism industry of Cornwall as well as the other sectors like, hotels, restaurants and other tourism related industry. The project can improve the supply chain by helping the suppliers to boost their supply as the demand increases. Thirdly, the opportunity to the investors also increases a great deal because of the Eden Project as it can promote off-site developmental projects, thereby adding value to the economy. This implies new investments in the due course as the economy booms on account of the current developments. Fourthly, the benefit to the local community will be the maximum because of the project. It has already been stated that the economy of Cornwall was marked with high level of unemployment prior to the establishment of the project. The job boost for the local people has been significant. The project has been successful to quite an extent for relieving the economy out of its unemployment disadvantages. Beneficiaries will also include the school children as it develops their sense of protecting the environment and performing their responsibilities towards the planet in a better manner. This will create value for the future generations. Based on the value chain of Porter, the project has both direct and indirect sub-activities which will improve the development of the link between the primary and support activities. A social enterprise like, the Eden Project, can create value which can surpass the value creation by the traditional businesses because it has the motive of crafting profits along with providing social value to the community. This happens mainly because a social enterprise earns profit and then reinvests the earned profit in developing the lives of the people around it. Social enterprises always have the opportunity to team up with other enterprises, thereby increasing their chances to team up with other business houses for creating an intrinsic value chain (Lee, 2012). In the Waste Neutral project of the Eden, there is a huge potential of tapping the supply chain based on the wide range of suppliers. The Eden Project has over 3,500 suppliers from all around the world and among them, 1000 are active (Eden Project, n.d.). The range of suppliers provides wide options of products starting from horticulture to design and also, from retail to IT. This entire chain of suppliers can directly benefit from the primary activity of the project like, the inbound and outbound logistics. The marketing and the sales team can also improve the margin by enhancing the sales through effective marketing strategy. Eden can also improve the experience of the visitors by providing them with quality service. This will surely bring more tourists by spreading the word and attracting more business for the park. Finally, the reinvest strategy can add value to the entire community. The entire point of recycle is useless if the recycled products are not bought by the customers. Setting up of retail stores for selling recycled products can bring high margin of profits for the energy conservation park. Once the retail chain expansion gains momentum, it will encourage economic activities relating to the development of a parallel economy centred on the main project. Reference List BBC, 2013. Eden Project in government funding call. [online] Available at: [Accessed 7 December 2013]. Bodelva, 2009. Eden Project - A living Theatre of Plants in the heart of Cornwall. [online] Available at: [Accessed 7 December 2013]. Dilys, R., James, M., Maryanne, G. G., Ashish, K., Christo, F., and Ross, H., 2000. Evaluating Eden: Exploring the Myths and Realities of Community-Based Wildlife Management. [pdf] n.p. Available at: [Accessed 7 December 2013]. Eden Project, n.d. A Review of the Framework Programme. [online] Available at: [Accessed 7 December 2013]. Lee, M., 2012. The Value Creation of Social Enterprise in Tourism Industry. [pdf] South Karelia. Available at: [Accessed 7 December 2013]. Magretta, J., 2012. Understanding Michael Porter: The essential guide to competition and strategy. Boston: Harvard Business Press. Recklies, D., 2001. The Value Chain. [pdf] n.p. Available at: [Accessed 7 December 2013]. Restormel Borough Council, n.d. Development related to the ‘Eden’ Effect. [pdf] Restormel Borough Council. Available at: [Accessed 7 December 2013]. Rush, J., and Ottley, M. 2006. Business law. Connecticut: Cengage Learning EMEA Stokes, T., 2007. Eden Project Food Waste Technology Trial. [online] Available at: [Accessed 7 December 2013]. SWRDA, 2009. Evaluation of the Eden Project and SWRDA's role. [pdf] South West Regional Development Agency. Available at: [Accessed 7 December 2013]. Wright, T. and Charter, S., 2007. The Cornwall Consciousness Centre [pdf] n.p. Available at: [Accessed 7 December 2013]. Read More