The Impact of the Daylighting Collaborative on Two Firms: Hoffman Corporation and Pella Corporation

Abby Vogen, Energy Center of Wisconsin
Mark Hanson and Tom Cox, Hoffman Corporation
Dean Stewart, Pella Corporation / Ver Halen Inc.

Keywords

Abstract

The Daylighting Collaborative is a market transformation program designed to increase the usage of cooling load avoidance daylighting in commercial buildings. The program targets a broad array of market players including architects and engineers, building equipment manufacturers, and builders. This paper describes the impact of the program on Hoffman Corporation, a commercial design-build firm; the Pella Corporation, a window manufacturer; and Ver Halen, Inc, one of Pella’s distributors. The paper looks at market transformation from the perspective of these businesses and describes how they find out about the program, how they participate in program, how they make decisions that change their business operations, and how they view their ongoing partnership with the Daylighting Collaborative and each other. Key issues for these businesses are firm strategic direction, corporate philosophy, customer service, products, market differentiation, and pricing. Hoffman Corporation’s strategy is to use Cool Daylighting to help provide sustainable buildings that are consistent with a LEED™ Silver rating. Pella’s strategy is to increase is presence in the commercial building market by increasing its product offerings to meet Daylighting Collaborative specifications as part of its commitment to sustainability. The paper concludes with some general lessons for market transformation programs that intend to influence or collaborate with private businesses.