I had the opportunity to meet recently with a W. L. Gore Associate at the company’s “Capabilities Center,” in Newark, Delaware. As an architect, designer and entrepreneurial business owner, I find W. L. Gore to be most fascinating and inspirational for their culture of innovation, fostered by their corporate emphasis on communication and ethics. Their unique ability to operate quietly, while pursuing creative excellence has provided me with a model for defining my own objectives in the creative business of architecture.
W. L. Gore’s well-profiled beginnings sprang from the Newark, Delaware basement of founders Bill and Vieve Gore. Discovering that an early implement for manufacturing their fluoropolymer was a doctored electric frying pan indicated to me that creativity ‘on the cheap’ can actually move mountains. Importantly, the founders created a culture of innovation that, over 50 years later, has resulted in a multi-billion dollar business that has created technologies and products that literally impact all of our lives in one form or another.
But how, one might ask, does this translate into an article about innovation and sustainability? Thanks to the efforts of many dedicated individuals, “green building” practices have gone mainstream, due in large part to the momentum that the USGBC’s LEED program has generated. A few years ago, few people knew or cared about LEED and it’s ‘Leadership in Environmental Design’ program. Now LEED-accreditation is an expected professional credential. LEED-certification has been adopted by many public and private sector organizations as a realistic building project objective. LEED has brought the need for environmental sensitivity to the forefront of design and construction practice.
We must now look beyond LEED into a holistic approach to sustainability. The factors that contribute to sustainability start with the basics of building design and construction, but reach further into the processes that cycle from the make-up of a product, the production processes, the shipping of the product, the use of a product in a building and the ability to see that product re-used, recycled or re-purposed for other uses.
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