By now, everyone and his nutritionist has heard of the 100-mile diet, the phenomenon started in 2005 by an eco-conscious Vancouver couple who decided to eat and drink only what could be grown and produced within a 100-mile radius of their home.
But what about the like-minded movement in the world of home decor?
These days, a great bulk of our home furnishings are manufactured abroad, travel great distances to get to us and eat up a lot of resources in the process. So just as we shop at farmers markets and wear locally made T-shirts, a growing number of us are looking in our own neighbourhoods for sustainable yet chic alternatives.
And contrary to popular belief, it's not all recycled-record vases and too-clever-by-half craft kitsch.
Get set for 100-mile decorating.
"Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the cost to the planet of transporting heavy things from a factory in the Far East or Europe to their North American homes," says Graeme Spicer, director of retail strategy at DW + Partners Inc., a retail branding and design consultancy in Toronto.
"They also have more confidence that their purchases are being created in an environmentally friendly or at least environmentally neutral manner if they're made locally instead of in, say, China, which has a shaky environmental record at best."
As it happens, many of this country's design firms were sourcing their materials and producing their products close to home long before Canadians started measuring their carbon footprints.
British Columbia's Brent Comber, for instance, has been crafting his rugged wood furniture out of fallen or reclaimed Vancouver-area timber since 1994, while Toronto-based Centrifuge Design's policy of working with suppliers and fabricators in the city and its environs is as old as the firm itself.
"Even when we started back in 2000, we were thinking about sourcing locally and keeping to a made-in-Canada strategy," says Centrifuge designer Stephen Hugo-Seinader, whose products range from pepper mills to mailboxes.
A clear indication that the public has finally caught up with Canadian designers on this issue is the emergence of retailers - such as Made in Toronto and M in Vancouver - devoted to homegrown products.
Both shops founded their business models on the belief that enough customers would be interested in locally produced wares created by emerging Canadian designers or, in M's case, the store itself. (It produces a line of "sustainably forested" furniture called Wood by M.)
So far, the green idea is bringing in the real green.
Shortly after opening less than two years ago, "we quickly saw that a lot of people were looking for this kind of stuff and responding to it," says Julie Nicholson, who co-owns Made with Shaun Moore.
More than mass-produced goods brought in from abroad, "it speaks to their experiences and means something to them," she adds.
Spicer, who likens regional decor to bespoke tailoring and artisanal wares, says these often one-of-a-kind works are the new must-haves for design types.
"As boomers are getting older, they are questioning the cult of consumerism and what is truly of value," he says. In this context, "a carefully curated collection of unusual pieces by lesser-known designers has as much appeal as a room full of Eames and Jacobsen."
In addition to their emotional value, their new cachet and their eco-friendliness, 100-mile products offer another, more practical advantage: shorter wait times for deliveries. After all, a sofa made in Montreal is likely to reach you sooner than one shipped from Milan, as the companies that still manufacture furniture here in Canada are eager to point out.
Quebec-based Perez Furniture, for instance, pitches the clean-lined items it produces in its own Montreal facility as "a true alternative to imports."
Toronto's Barrymore, which has been handcrafting sofas and chairs in the city since 1919, also trumpets its local cred.
