True or false: Most Fortune 500 companies care little about the environment and continue to be major polluters, operating without concern for their role in causing the greenhouse effect that many scientists believe is warming the Earth.

Answer: true and false. And that's good news for supporters of the environment. Any movement in progressive environmental ethics from corporate America is worth noting, considering its less than stellar history in admitting any wrongdoing or influence when presented with evidence supporting global warming.

Consider how, throughout the 1990s, corporate leaders united to reject any binding agreements that would have required countries to control emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Reluctance persisted despite scientific reports indicating global warming is due, in part, to the burning of fossil fuels. In some cases, the defiance from the fossil fuels industry includes paying speaking engagement fees to publicly funded university professors, such as climate experts, to cast doubts on scientific computer models validating global warming trends.

Warming-climate dissenters remain steadfast despite, for example, a recent United Nations report, Emissions Scenarios, based on the predictions of a scientific panel. Its members estimate that the Earth's surface temperature will rise two to six degrees Fahrenheit over the next century unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. This finding lends ominous support to fears that the consequences of deleterious human activity will have a ripple effect throughout the planet as the polar ice caps further melt, drought and hurricane conditions intensify, and flora and fauna populations decrease due to environmental stresses in drastically changing biomes.

But now the situation is changing. Major corporations are beginning to acknowledge the threat of increased industrial-produced greenhouse gases to the long-term health of our planet. This note of concern is being followed by diverse solutions that, in some cases, are costing companies billions of dollars more than the standard environmental protections mandated by state and federal agencies.

"Besides showing increased concern for the environment and its welfare, more businesses are now realizing they cannot exist without consideration on their part for the environment," says Rick Schulberg, executive director of the Portland-based International Sustainable Development Foundation. "They [businesses] are noticing exactly what we're seeing - dramatic health cost increases, multibillion-dollar insurance costs attributable to environmental disasters, and many other consequences. As a result, the smart businesses know they now have to act for the long term by quickly formulating and implementing new ways of operating that are more environment-friendly."

Perhaps the most compelling evidence for the shift of policy in the corporate world stems from the recent withdrawal by Ford Motor Company from the Washington, DC-based Global Climate Coalition (GCC), a primary lobbying group opposing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to restrict greenhouse emissions worldwide. The GCC argues that there is insufficient evidence to suggest major Earth warming has resulted from the emission of greenhouse gases. Equally significant, other major companies that defected from the GCC, including General Motors (GM), DaimlerChrysler, Texaco, BP Amoco, and Shell, agree with Ford's new position stating that credible scientific evidence for ongoing global warming now exists. Ford suggested that it and other companies should rapidly expand their efforts to begin finding and applying more environment-friendly technological solutions.

Enter William McDonough. Soon after being named Hero for the Planet by Time Magazine in 1999, the Charlottesville, Virginia designer approached Ford's chairman of the board William Clay Ford, Jr., and his staff in Dearborn, Michigan. It was good timing, you might say. Riding the wave of pro-environment sentiment at Ford, McDonough suggested that his Earth-respecting design principles should be the model for the venerable car company to follow if they were sincere in their commitment to achieve a cleaner planet for future generations.

After a series of meetings involving Ford's top designers and engineers, a number of McDonough's initiatives were accepted. Though Ford will not reveal the specifics, McDonough and his partner, chemist Michael Braungart (both of whom operate McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry) have been busy retooling and retrofitting Ford's facilities and products worldwide. The aim of their efforts, which may cost upward of $2 billion to implement in the next 20 years, could help Ford emerge as a successful leading example for sweeping environmental changes in corporate America in what McDonough calls the "next Industrial Revolution."

And how would everyday life be different in this new era of environmentalism that McDonough envisions? To answer this question, it is important to note that McDonough and Braungart are not merely advocating pro-environmental measures that begin and end with the introduction of more fuel efficient cars, increased recycling success, less use of electricity, and the elimination of, say, redwood lumber as a building material in favor of another more common source.

"Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying recycling, for example, is bad," McDonough says. "But recycling, as well as other seemingly laudable Earth-friendly tactics purporting to increase eco-efficiency, all of them together are just another way of perpetuating the existing system. Plainly put, eco-efficiency (such as recycling efforts) aspires to make the old, destructive system less so. But its goals, however admirable, are fatally flawed. Reduction, reuse, and recycling slow down the rate of contamination and depletion, but do not stop these processes. Most recycled materials still eventually end up in landfills."

McDonough and Braungart believe that rather than striving to make manufacturing (glass, aluminum, plastic, cardboard, for example) "less bad" by reducing materials and reclaiming waste, industry should be designing products that give birth to other products and technologies. Cases in point are seen in the partners' introduction of designs for nontoxic shower gels, fabrics that do not contain mutagens or carcinogens, toys made without PVCS, biodegradable dairy containers, and a recyclable Nike shoe made with soles that, upon disintegrating, will serve as nutrients for gardens.

At Ford, McDonough is remaking the company's renowned Rouge Plant in Dearborn, once the heart of the company's industrial kingdom. Ford's engineers are rapidly developing fuel-efficient, product-feasible electric and hybrid electric-gas vehicles. Perhaps testament to Ford's environmental commitment was its recent purchase of the TH!NK electric city car from the Norwegian vehicle manufacturer PIVCO. Introduced by Ford, the TH!NK city went on sale in Norway late last year. About the size of a Ford Fiesta, the two-seat vehicle has a body constructed of recyclable thermoplastic and an approximate driving range of 55 miles before requiring recharging. It will be sold in Europe later this year and in the United States in 2001.

Some critics have lambasted Ford, as well as other major automakers, for their aggressive marketing and distribution of non-environment-friendly, gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles (SUVs). In response, Ford is the first automaker to have announced plans for introducing a hybrid-electric powered SUV called the Escape. Aiming for a 2003 introduction in both Europe and the United States, the Escape will achieve 40 miles per gallon (MPG).

Even quicker out of the gate, Honda and Toyota have already introduced hybrid-electric vehicles in the United States. Honda's Insight debuted in California at the end of 1999 and is now available nationwide. The Insight recharges its battery whenever the driver brakes, thereby achieving a startling fuel efficiency of 70 MPG - making the Insight's highway performance better by nearly 30 MPG than its closest hybrid competitor, Toyota's Prius, which debuted in the United States in June.

Referring to its presentation of the Excellence in Environmental Engineering award that honored Honda, the Sierra Club's executive director Carl Pope said "It isn't every millennium the Sierra Club praises a car. But the Honda Insight deserves the first award [presented for a product introduction] because it marks the beginning of the automotive industry utilizing twenty-first century technology."

Other corporations bolting from the GCC this year have initiated equally intriguing green campaigns. DaimlerChrysler has earmarked more than one billion dollars in the last couple of years to fund research and development that aims to introduce Earth-friendly products and manufacturing processes. The company intends to invest another billion dollars to build the first fuel-cell-powered city buses in the next three years for use in Europe and, soon after, abroad. Fuel cells are considered to be a promising alternative power source because they have low or no emissions and operate more quietly. DaimlerChrysler also claims it will introduce products that are 85 percent recyclable by the year 2002, and promises that every vehicle will be no less than 95 percent recyclable by 2005.

Another participant in the "green parade" is General Motors' vice president Harry Pearce. The company's leading evangelist on behalf of GM's environmental commitment, his mea culpa would have been almost unthinkable in yesterday's business climate: "We recognize there has been an increase in CO₂. It is a cause for concern . . . we ought to be doing something about [global warming] now because technologies don't get developed overnight."

Pearce points to the 15 percent improved fuel economy for GM's new truck versions of the Chevrolet Silverado and GM's Sierra. He also claims that by 2002, a 50 percent reduction in nitrogen oxide will occur without an increase in other GM engine emissions. In addition, GM plans on producing full-size hybrid gasoline-and-electric pickup trucks by 2004.

"This signals a breakthrough in industry thinking," said Jason Mark, codirector of transportation studies for the Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists, a public interest group that looks at a variety of environmental and health issues. "The companies are beginning to use their technology to deliver better fuel economy instead of more horsepower. This could be the beginning of the end of the horsepower race in America."

Likewise, oil giants Texaco and Shell are applying new technologies that improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Among many actions, Texaco is proud of its proprietary gasification technology that converts various carbon-based feedstocks such as natural gas, coal, petroleum coke, and heavy oil into cleaner synthesis gas, which is used to produce chemicals, fuels, fertilizer, and/or electricity. The technology significantly reduces the emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and carbon dioxide.

Meanwhile, Shell has significantly cut its output of greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels. Funding of agencies working on behalf of habitat and species preservation is another primary Shell green initiative. Its recent $5 million gift, for example, to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation was the largest corporate donation ever in support of marine conservation.

McDonough, of course, hopes that Ford's recent activities represent a true commitment to environment-friendly products. The intrepid designer, you see, is no different from many environmental advocates: he'd like to see his efforts result in a real alternative to the internal combustion engine. McDonough sees the "next Industrial Revolution" as a challenge to us to learn to use our planet's resources more wisely and more effectively. Only then, he figures, will we begin to live more harmoniously with the natural world.

But can we, as a planet, get to this point? McDonough remains optimistic, saying, "The glass is half full. When we look at the new products and materials that are needed to affect a world that we can all delight in for all the children of all species for all times, you realize that just about everything can be redesigned."