For years, sustainability advocates frustrated by industry's resistance to change have consoled themselves with the thought that the old guard would eventually retire and be replaced by a new, more au courant generation of leaders. Just hang in there and the dawn would come. It's a nice fantasy, this eco-variation on the Age of Aquarius. Nor, as it turns out, is it entirely fanciful, for one such leader has emerged. His name is Bill Ford and he heads up the automotive giant his great-grandfather founded.

Eighteen months ago Ford junior took over the chairmanship. One might expect the ascendancy of this Princeton-educated scion of the industrial aristocracy to have meant business-as-usual, or maybe even business-in-reverse, but this particular Ford is new-breed, not old-school. Under his aegis the corporation has been undergoing a dramatic transformation and it has sustainability advocates thrilled.

Bill Ford's vision begins with social responsibility. The University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman argued famously that the business of business is to make money: let other sectors worry about social issues. Ford is a sort of anti-Friedman. Current safety scandals aside, he believes multinationals are duty-bound to try to make the world a better place. "Those of us in industry have an enormous opportunity to change the world," he says. "I want to be remembered as someone who inherited a wonderful legacy and enhanced it by touching as many people's lives as possible in a positive way."

Sustainability is a many-faceted thing-and Bill Ford's vision covers just about all of it. Clean technology, environmental protection, transparent communication and social responsibility-these all have priority for him, depending on which facet of the diamond he's considering. Technology, above all, is what gives Ford hope. "A friend of mine recently said I act like a 60's radical," he says. "The difference is that in the 60's, all you could do was protest and complain because there were no solutions. Now technology is changing so fast that solutions are starting to come into sight. That's what really excites me-the fact that we have an opportunity."

The company is pursuing these opportunities aggressively. This year, it purchased a majority interest in Norway-based TH!NK Nordic, which manufactures a two-seat electric car designed for use in cities. "This is going to be more than an electric division," stresses Ford. "It really pushes the envelope in terms of what personal mobility means. We're going to try and make TH!NK a totally sustainable division."

In 2003 the company will introduce a hybrid-electric, packaged in that bane of environmentalists, the sports utility vehicle (SUV). Why this unlikely choice? "Whatever we do environmentally, we want to apply it to high-volume situations, rather than niche products. The SUV is what we sell the most of." The company has also, boasts Ford, "done more work on alternative fuel cells than any other manufacturer."

The company's commitment to sustainable technology includes processes as well as products. Ford has hired designers William McDonough and Michael Braungart to do a complete makeover of the company's Rouge industrial complex, built by Henry Ford in the 1920s. "It was the industrial icon of the 20th century, the most studied and copied plant in the world," recalls Bill Ford.

Plans for the new Rouge include solar panels, so-called 'living systems' that use live organisms to process waste, a grass roof that is a net producer of oxygen, and zero waste. "We want this manufacturing facility to be what it was 80 years ago, the most copied industrial site in the world-but this time for sustainability," says Ford.

It's all part of what drives him. "For me it's a crusade," he says "What inspires me is the notion that we can actually lead the next industrial revolution."

That's Ford the visionary speaking. Meanwhile he's also setting aggressive but achievable stretch goals for incremental improvement. The company has voluntarily committed to making all its trucks, including its SUVs in Canada and the US, meet California's stringent Low Emission Vehicle (LEV) emission standard. It has also announced plans to increase the fuel efficiency of its gas-guzzling SUVs by 25 percent over the next five years-two moves unique to the industry.

Ford is also the only auto company in the world to have all its facilities ISO 14001-certified. In addition, the company has challenged its 5000 suppliers to achieve certification by the year 2003.

But if there is a first among equals in Bill Ford's vision of sustainability, it is probably communication. Here especially, he is of the new breed. One could say he believes in dialogue, transparency, integrity-all the right stuff. That would be true, but it would only skim the surface. Talking with Ford, one gets the distinct sense that he does more than believe: these values are part of his essence. For him they are a matter not of principle so much as faith-faith that embracing them is the best (and maybe the only) way to be.

This faith is showing up in what the company does and says. It was the first auto company to pull out of the Global Climate Coalition, a group committed to resisting action against climate change. It has staunchly defended its sustainability stance amidst a hail of criticism from Wall St. And in its first Corporate Citizenship Report, published earlier this year, the company acknowledged that SUVs were less than ideal environmentally-a first-of-its-kind confession.

Late this summer Bill Ford brought in about thirty heads of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from around the world to meet with top management. "We talked for three days about the issues facing the world and what role Ford can and should play," he recounts. "It was extremely productive for both our executives and the NGOs. We plan to do this on a regular basis."

And how did the NGO leaders feel about sitting down with the enemy? "They usually start off hostile and then we work through that," he says. "My feeling is, if someone doesn't like what I'm doing, let's sit down and discuss it."

More than anything else, Bill Ford is a man in the middle. That's true in two senses. Chronologically, he's midway between the past and the future. He has inherited an extraordinary legacy and wants nothing more than to transform it into the gold of a sustainable future.

He's in the middle politically, too. Business acquaintances, he says, have called him a Bolshevik. Environmentalists distrust him because he's an industrialist. Those are old labels, though and these are new times. Bill Ford is the very essence of the 21st Century industrialist. The green industrialist. A new breed.

Age: 43
How he wants to be remembered: As a person who inherited a wonderful legacy and enhanced it.
Goal as a business leader: To head a company people are proud to work at. To run an open and honest company.

"Ten years ago it was rather lonely to be an environmentalist at Ford. Everyday I would push environmental ethics and the top executives hated me for it. It's been a ten year struggle to get where we are now, which is to acknowledge that environmental leadership is central to our strategy. This, however, is what gets me out of bed every morning."

Republished with kind permission from Tomorrow Magazine. Originally published November-December 2000.