Kirsten
Matthews

My name is Kirsten and I am a third-year business student.  This semester I explored the idea of systems thinking.  Sustainability is a major wicked problem; one that needs to be looked at from a holistic standpoint.  I first looked at the current fashion system and in what ways it is unsustainable.  Fast fashion creates a huge amount of waste.  Large amounts of clothing are produced very quickly and then thrown out as they deteriorate or go out of style.  Is there a way to improve this system?  I thought that the solution might be to teach people to value their clothes.  The best way to get people to value something is to get them to sacrifice something for it; for them to put effort into it.  In order for me to understand how valuable clothes are, I first had to make them myself.  I sewed a pair of super baggy pants and an outdoor blanket out of an old childhood blanket and some tarp.  I wanted to upcycle as much as I could during this semester to avoid unnecessary waste.  This was my first attempt at exploring the idea of self-sufficiency.  I discovered that the only way to truly be self-sufficient is to make.  Outsourcing to meet your needs always involves an exorbitant amount of waste, which is not good for us or our planet.  As I eventually want to live off the grid in my own tiny home, I decided that sleeping outdoors would be a valuable experience.  I gained a few insights from this: it is too cold to sleep outside during the fall and setting up camp is tedious.  Wanting to explore the housing system further, I decided to take a tour of a cohousing community in Vancouver.   My final prototype was a wooden greenhouse that was designed for urban dwellings.  This gave me insight on how to build things; a skill which should prove to be useful in the future.