Ecological footprint (EF), as one of the sustainable development indicators, has received much attention. To find out the main driving factors of EF can help us design the scientific and rational countermeasures for regional sustainable development. At the present time, most methods in the studies selected single or several indicators, and few research comprehensively considered almost all the driving factors together. Another, most studies had still used some familiar or common methods. In this paper, a new method Hierarchical Partial Least Squares model (Hi_PLS), which roots from the classical Partial Least Squares model (PLS), was introduced to go on studying EF's drivers in detailed. Henan Province was taken as an example for the specific case study because it has the largest population and typical significance in China. The related social, economic, population and resources, etc. data (totally 28 indicators) from Henan Province during 1952-2006 were collected in the computing process. The results showed: firstly, compared with the classical PLS, the Hi_PLS was more effective and convenient, and clear to explain the results; secondly, the non-important driving factor of Henan Province's EF was the total sown area of farm crops, which was the behalf of Henan Province's agricultural resource status to some extent. All the other factors can be considered as the important driving factors, and they can be sorted as the following according to their importance: (1) transportation activities, (2) population growth, (3) economy activities, (4) education activities, (5) medical activities, (6) post activities and (7) investment activities. Moreover, the importance of the anterior four driving factors was significantly greater than that of the latter three ones. Thus, the first four could be grouped as the most important cores of driving factors. Based on this point, some specific countermeasures for Henan Province's sustainable development could be put forward as following. First, transportation activities were the most important driving factors of its EF. In the future, transportation efficiency should be improved and technological strength be enhanced, which including reducing unnecessary and inefficient transportation activities, such as passenger and cargo transport, and using the cleanest and most low-carbon transportation tools, etc. Second, population growth was the second of most important driving factors. In the next years, the rate of population growth must still be strictly controlled. The family planning policy should still be fixed as the basic state policy and be implemented without any exception. Third, the economic development activities in Henan Province coming from industries were the third most important driving factors of its EF. Thus, the fact indicated the economic growth efficiency in Henan Province should be enhanced. For example, the economic growth way or industry structure should be actively adjusted so that some high-tech, low-pollution and low-discharge industries could obtain rapid development. Last, education activities were the fourth important driving factors of Henan Province's EF. But education activities' increase could be considered as the result of population growth. Besides, the importance of the latter three driving factors was obviously smaller than that of the first four ones. Thus, no policy suggestion be put forward from education activities and the latter three factors.