One of Cornwall’s original social enterprise-orientated companies, The Real Ideas Organisation, has welcomed the announcement that the Duchy has been granted the status of the UK’s first rural social enterprise zone.
Nick Hurd, Minister for Civil Society, joined Lindsey Hall, RIO’s co-founder, and a selection of other Cornwall-based or influenced companies, at the Eden Project to mark the zone’s establishment.
The Cornwall Social Enterprise Zone is part of a national campaign to recognise social enterprise places and is awarded by SEUK, the national body for Social Enterprise.
The new social enterprise zone will mark Cornwall’s commitment to creating an entrepreneurial culture to drive growth, “based on people and planet”.
Hall said: “Cornwall has a unique history. It is a place where creating jobs and supporting communities is intrinsically linked; where visionary mavericks take industrial wastelands and transform them into business engines and places that make your soul sing; where doing good business is about doing good.
“The Cornwall Social Enterprise Zone champions this way of working and challenges it to go further; bringing business, social enterprise and the public sector together to build economic prosperity and a brilliant quality of life for all.”
Hurd added: “At a time when we need new solutions, it is right to get behind our social entrepreneurs. Cornwall is rich in social enterprise and innovation. So it is right that it should be home to the first rural social enterprise zone in the country. Where Cornwall leads, I hope other regions will follow as the social enterprise and investment movement grows in this country.”
