They were–or should have been–strange rostrum-fellows: managers of textile firms, directors of factories, executives from the world’s largest automakers. These “eco-outlaws” shared the stage with America’s foremost green architect, William McDonough, and Dr. Michael Braungart, his radical German chemist counterpart, on the final day of a recent sustainability conference–lions of commerce lying down with eco-lambs. “This is what the twentieth century believed to be success in industry,” Tim O’Brien, director of environmental quality at Ford Motor Company, told attendees at the “EnvironDesign” conference as a grim image of Ford’s antiquated Rouge River manufacturing plant fiashed onto the screen behind him. For O’Brien–and for Ford–the presentation was not a mea culpa, but a declaration of intent: “And this is clearly what the twenty-first century is no longer willing to accept.”
See the full article: “Think Green,” Metropolis, August/September 2001