When I joined Ford, in the late 1970s, I felt strongly we could not forever be a huge user of natural resources without there being consequences. But I was alone in my thinking in those days.

I think I was the first executive to ever speak at a Greenpeace business conference, in London in 2001. That didn't play well here at Ford, but I thought it was an important signal to send internally, that these were the kind of issues we needed to be grappling with.

I never wanted Ford to be a place, like the tobacco industry, where our employees were not proud of coming to work for us. I felt there was a danger of that, should we be marginalized as a major polluter.

William Clay Ford, Jr. Quotes