How did your business first get started?

During the 1980s, I began lobbying our local council, suggesting that they ought to set up a doorstep collection of recyclable materials. I suppose the idea was a bit ahead of its time - there were no other councils in the UK doing the sort of thing I was suggesting. Consequently, it turned out to be just a tad too radical for our council to take on board and I got nowhere.

However, I wasn’t willing to accept that situation, so I managed to inspire a group of friends and we took things into our own hands and started doing the collections ourselves. We all donated our labour, so our costs were low and the sale of the materials we collected covered all our expenses.

The concepts of ‘society’ and ‘community’ are really important ones to me, so I took enormous pleasure from seeing our community empowering itself to provide its own services when the council refused to do so.

When we turned our voluntary organisation into a business it seemed natural from the very beginning that it should be run as a social enterprise.

There were many people who told us that it would never catch on and that the general public would never bother to separate out their rubbish for recycling but we stuck by our beliefs. It’s been immensely satisfying over recent years to see councils all over the UK gradually adopt our model.

Why do you think you’ve been successful as a social entrepreneur?

For a long time I didn’t admit - even to myself - what an intensely competitive person I am. Whatever I do, I always want to do it better next time.

I want to make this company bigger and better and more successful. I love to beat our commercial competitors and to win an order or a contract. But it was only when I started running Mid Devon Community Recycling that I discovered this competitive entrepreneur within me.

Now that I’ve let him out, I’m really enjoying expressing a side of myself that had been buried for much of my life.

I’m also an awkward, rebellious individual. I’m not very good at doing what I’m told, so it really doesn’t suit me to work for someone else. I get an enormous satisfaction from being self-directing in my working life.

However, too many people judge success by the amount of money you make. I don’t want to waste my life just making money. I want to put my entrepreneurial skills and competitive energies into doing something I can be proud of having done. I want to, at least try, to make the world a slightly better place. If I can improve the environment, or my community or the quality of a few of the lives I come into contact with, then I can take some satisfaction from my life.

In 2006 the council re-tendered our contract. We found ourselves competing against a number of multi-national companies who had contract departments with bigger budgets than our entire company.

We beat them all to win a 7 year contract and our success as a business, and my success as a social entrepreneur, was really confirmed at that moment.

However, successful entrepreneurs never sit on their laurels. I’m now working on plans to expand the geographical area we work in and the number of councils we work for. We’re developing a trade recycling division which offers a recycling service to businesses.

Why did you want to be a Social Enterprise Ambassador?

Most of my company’s services need to be sold to local councils and I’ve found it really difficult to get council procurement officers to understand the social enterprise concept. Common questions are, ‘are you a charity?’ and ‘but I thought you were all volunteers’.

Being an Ambassador gives me some authority and credibility and I want to use those advantages to change the way councils think about our sector. By the time I leave this role I want us to be in a situation where - every time a council tenders a contract - they’re hoping to receive at least one tender from a social enterprise. This will help to open up the market place to our sector and provide some real encouragement for budding social entrepreneurs to set up the business they’ve been dreaming about.

What advice would you give to budding social entrepreneurs?

Keep networking – and take every opportunity to network with other high achievers. Networking will help you to feel less isolated and when high achievers network, they keep re-inspiring each other – it’s a magnificent upward spiral.

Other than that it would be to ignore advice!

Be selective in what you take on board. Someone once told me “never turn a hobby/interest/passion into a business because you won’t be hard-headed enough”. I know what he meant – but how boring is that! The story of each of the ambassadors shows just how exciting life can be when we commit our working lives to following our passions. I’m so glad I ignored that particular piece of ‘wisdom’.