Editor's Note: This is the sixth article in a seven-week series by Nathan Springer that will chronicle in-depth the lessons from a course at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business on how to become a social intrapreneur -- someone who makes change for good from within the enterprise.

Few issues have more potential to enhance impact outside of the enterprise than human rights and water. Working conditions in factories are as top of mind for electronics today as they were for apparel ten years ago, while water scarcity is an exponentially increasing risk for any industry with assets or supply in arid regions of India, Africa, and the Middle East. According to the Ford Motor Company's Dave Berdish, Ford is a leader of positive impact for both.

Social impact outside the enterprise is the focus of the sixth article in a series following a class on Social Intrapreneurs in the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan taught by Professor Jerry Davis and former student Chris White. This week, Ford's Manager of Social Sustainability, Dave Berdish, visited the class near his home in Ann Arbor.

Berdish speaks to students like he works: with conviction and authenticity. "There's people we have to take care of that are underserved," says Berdish about his motivations to take on sustainability part way through his career. He worked 17 years in operations at Ford plants in Michigan before he was tapped in 1999 to create a human rights policy when Bill Ford became chairman. "For me, sustainability isn't just environmental, it's also social," he says.

His strategy for increasing external impact begins beyond the enterprise. "One of the reasons I was successful is that I was so enthusiastic to get outside the factory walls. That's a contrast to how I worked in manufacturing," says Berdish. He formed relationships with Ceres, the Global Reporting Initiative, Human Rights First, and the United Nations Global Compact on Human Rights. He also learned from counterparts at Nike and Disney who were a few steps ahead of Ford in blazing new trails in sustainability at the time.

By 2003, Ford became the first automotive company to adopt a Human Rights Code of Working Conditions. Beyond a policy in name only, it included a training, assessment, audit and remediation program among its first tier supply base. Berdish also established a program to identify emerging issues and a stakeholder engagement process and he personally visits company sites as often as he can. "People just don't trust you if you're on the other side of the world and it's very, very hard to manage," says Berdish.

Buoyed by initial success and external credibility, he strengthened internal relationships to increase the program's longevity and impact. "When you're trying to work on something, especially as important as sustainability, there's something to say about the relationships, trust, and trustworthiness," he says. One of the relationships Berdish cultivated was with his boss Sue Cischke, the Group Vice President of Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering, who retired last month.

Next page: Addressing water impacts around the world