"I just find that there's a lot of guilt trips put on, trying to convince other people that they're living unsustainably. I'm trying to bring that to light and say that we don't have to feel negative about the way we live, but there are certain actions that we can take to live more sustainably," he says.
For Vreeling, design is about life cycles, choices, and thinking from cradle to cradle rather than cradle to grave.
He uses White Moose as an example, explaining that as a designer, you have to decide how long the product is going to last -- and that guides the materials that you use and, therefore, the price that you need to charge.
"Our price point is higher because we're using true materials such as solid wood and stainless steel. I want this furniture to last hundreds of years -- it's not something that will be tossed out."
The key consideration, he says, is analyzing the life of a product: what sort of energy, time and materials does it take to extract the material, produce the item, ship it, use it and maintain it -- and what are you left with in the end?
Vreeling cites an example from a 2007 trade show, where his booth was next to one selling outdoor furniture made from natural products: grass seeds, chaff and resin.
"This is great," he says. "However, those products break down very quickly. They only last about two to five years. On the other hand, if you bought something that was made of, for example, stainless steel, it's a very destructive material. It takes a lot of energy to produce, it robs materials from the Earth, but when it's all said and done, that piece made out of stainless steel is going to last for 200 years if the owner treats it well. That's more sustainable over its life cycle than growing the grass, cutting it down, creating the resin, packaging the product and then shipping it from overseas."
Vreeling wants everyone -- not just designers -- to think critically and honestly about their lifestyles and the products that go into them.
"It's not always easy, because it might mean change," he says, "but change can be positive. My grandparents settled the land I grew up on seven hours north of Edmonton -- at the time, there was no electricity, no running water and just a simple dirt road."
Over the years, his grandparents saw the advent of running water, electricity, a paved road, television and even the Internet.
"All of a sudden they now live in a decent house that's heated and they don't have to stoke a fire -- they've experienced positive change in their quality of life for their entire lives," he says.
To make the next change facing our society -- that of greater sustainability -- just as positive is possible if we shift our thinking.
Vreeling notes, for example, that when we throw our garbage bag in the back alley or the front curb and it disappears, it's often out of sight and out of mind. Instead, he suggests we should think of ourselves as a little human ecosystem, taking responsibility for that ecosystem and what we're doing within it.
"Are we contributing to an excessive amount of waste, or is there something that we could be doing to use that to reduce that waste -- is there some way that we could live a little more consciously about what we're using and how we're using it?" Vreeling asks.
We don't necessarily have to sacrifice our quality of life, he says, but other sacrifices might need to be made -- perhaps in terms of the time or research that we need to invest in finding out about the products we use: where they were made, how far they've travelled and whether they can be used for something else when we're finished with them.
"This isn't something that needs to be feared," he says. "We can take a little bit of responsibility for ourselves and still maintain our identity as normal people. I'm not trying to be a renegade, but if no one talks about it, no one thinks about it and if no one thinks about it, no one's going to do anything about it."
-- Canwest News Service
