Caroline Vogl

What does sustainability mean to you?

To me, sustainability means the ability to meet the needs of current and future generations, including ecological and social needs.

Why is sustainability important to you?

True sustainability for this world will require a paradigm shift away from Western culture’s current (and longstanding) obsession with conquest, consumption, and oppression and will require a systemic change that accounts for ecological and social needs simultaneously.

What work have you undertaken related to the four pillars of sustainability (ecology, human health, economic vitality, social equity)?

My personal work in sustainability has focused on textiles. I started knitting about ten years ago, which became a gateway to more textile crafts as well as greater thinking about issues of sustainability in the textile industry. In 2017, I worked with other WWU students to write a Sustainability, Equity, and Justice Fund Grant to bring the textile activist Frau Fiber (aka Carole Frances Lung) to WWU. Frau Fiber gave a talk about her work involving the social and environmental impacts of garment production. Additionally, we assisted Frau Fiber in holding a free mending and upcycling workshop where people mended clothes, created patches, and upcycled discarded t-shirts. I also wrote a zine about fast fashion that was distributed before and during these events.

For my senior project, I am using Geographic Information Science (GIS) to create an online, interactive map of the fiber network of the Pacific Northwest. The fiber network includes textile producers (such as sheep farmers and textile mills), textile shops (such as yarn shops), and other participants. The goal of this project is to shine a light on the status of the regional production system of fiber and textiles in the Pacific Northwest, to help people and organizations examine what steps in fiber/textile production are missing regionally and where and in what way it is succeeding.