(FORTUNE Magazine) – Not many environmentalists count Warren Buffett among their heroes. But John Passacantando, 41, executive director of Greenpeace USA, doesn't have a typical activist's bio. He majored in economics and once worked at a consulting firm for Jude Wanniski, the supply-side economics guru and Wall Street Journal vet. Under Passacantando's watch, Greenpeace still stages flamboyant protests (he was recently arrested after returning waste from Bhopal, India, to its "rightful owner," a Dow Chemical plant in the Netherlands). But the organization is increasingly working with big companies such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's to make them more ecologically sound. We talked with Passacantando about the SUV backlash, office furniture, and CFCs. --Marc Gunther

Q: Is Greenpeace antibusiness?

A: Not in the least. What is a corporation but a way of organizing power? That power can be deployed to many ends. There's no reason that profit has to come at the expense of the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink.

Q: Should big corporations fear Greenpeace?

A: Sure. The public, through organizations like Greenpeace, can damage your brand and put pressure on your customers. We will ultimately cost you money the way you are costing us our health.

Q: Talk about some of the companies you've been working with.

A: We put a lot of pressure on Trader Joe's, the grocery store chain, to stop carrying genetically modified foods. When they came around, we sent people to help them figure out how to make the transition. We've worked with Coca-Cola and McDonald's on creating CFC-free refrigeration. Nobody wants to destroy a company. We're trying to stop destructive behavior.

Q: Any businesses you admire?

A: These are Herman Miller chairs that we proudly display in our office. Virtually everything in them that is plastic or metal can be recycled.

Q: You've launched a global boycott of Exxon Mobil. Why?

A: Exxon Mobil has gone out of its way, with its lobbyists and its campaign contributions, to undermine laws that would make our automobiles more efficient and to undermine our clean-air laws. Most important, it has been the lead actor undermining the one and only international effort to solve global warming, the Kyoto Protocol. That, to us, is a heinous act. [Exxon Mobil responds that it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on initiatives to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The company says it opposed Kyoto because it was "not a global solution, will do little if anything to reduce climate change, and is not cost-effective."]

Q: What's your position on SUVs, the issue of the moment?

A: We aren't de facto against SUVs. But when half of all vehicles on the road are these large vehicles, then it's absurd. I love the current debate. Environmentalists were unsuccessful in getting SUVs off the road. Fashion is driving SUVs off the road.

Q: Finally, are the countertops here really made out of recycled yogurt containers?

A: They are.