Impact Interview: Brittany Dickinson

Name: Brittany Dickinson

Role/Function: Director of Sustainability, Goodwill Industries International

What are you working on these days?

At Goodwill Industries International, we are engaged in several initiatives focused on increasing waste diversion, improving accountability and transparency, maximizing the value of donations and making a positive impact on communities around the world.

We just wrapped up a two-year project focused on transforming unsold donations into raw material for textile recycling. This project marked a critical step in addressing the global textile waste crisis while supporting local workforce development and job training programs. We partnered with Accelerating Circularity, a leading developer of circular textile supply chains, to help pilot the programming of this project and to co-develop skills, systems and infrastructure at 25 participating local Goodwill organizations.

We also just launched a traceability study, which is a multi-stakeholder initiative to follow the global journey of secondhand textiles. This study will inform reuse and recycling strategies and will help shape industry standards for transparency and product lifecycle stewardship.

Goodwill has been a leader in reuse for nearly 125 years, but the real beauty of working at Goodwill is that not only are we powering the circular economy, the revenue we collect goes back into local communities for job training and placement and support services for people with barriers to employment. The stories of people who are able to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges to build better futures and careers are personally motivating for me: justice-impacted individuals, people with disabilities, older workers, people who never had a chance at an education. It truly is a triple bottom line impact.

I should also mention here that this is my dream job, and I found this job through the Reconsidered newsletter! I’m constantly inspired and energized by the work, the mission and the opportunities. It’s also the most creative role I’ve ever had, which is interesting given that I am coming from a traditional “creative” industry.

What was the “aha” moment that sparked your interest in social and environmental impact? 

In 2014 I took a break from the fashion industry to enroll in the Design Research, Writing and Criticism master’s program at the School of Visual Arts (SVA). At that point I had been designing clothing at J.Crew for five years, and while I enjoyed it, I increasingly felt like something was missing.

I had always wanted to teach fashion design, so I knew I wanted to focus on design education for my thesis. I was broadly interested in how changes in the industry were impacting changes in fashion education and vice versa. Almost immediately after starting the program, I went down a rabbit hole reading about the destructive impacts of the fashion industry on people and the planet and I recognized how I had had a hand in this destruction as a designer. Sure, things had bothered me about the fashion industry (namely how wasteful the design process was), but I always shrugged it off as just part of the job. Things only became clear to me once I stepped away from the industry and looked at it critically. From there, I decided to focus my research on how fashion design schools address social and environmental issues.

Right after I graduated from SVA, I assisted a one-week intensive called Impact: Design for Social Change. This was hugely influential for me. It is where I was introduced to Systems Thinking and how to find the right leverage points to make real social impact.

I think back to my time at SVA as the moment when I truly woke up to the reality of the industry I had chosen. Everything truly significant I have done in my career originated from this point.

How did you break into the impact space? What career advice would you give to professionals who are just starting out or looking to transition?

I first got into the impact space by connecting with people who were doing things I was interested in. When I was in grad school, I interviewed a lot of fashion professors who had incorporated sustainability principles into their teaching, so when I graduated I got a job right away teaching in the new Systems & Society pathway in the School of Fashion at Parsons. I also always try to keep my finger on the pulse – I not only stay up to date on new developments in sustainability, but I am also just as interested in thinking critically about what might be missing.

As a systems thinker, there is a tendency to want to do everything, because you know that everything is connected, so it can be hard to prioritize. Goodwill recently had its inaugural Sustainability Summit, and I love the advice that Rick Ridgeway, our keynote speaker, gave the audience: When you wake up in the morning, never tell yourself you’re going to save the world. Instead, tell yourself you’re going to save one very small clearly defined part of the world. For me, this has translated into a focus on waste. I tackled waste from different angles, and at a much different scale, before arriving at Goodwill. I taught zero-waste principles to fashion design students, I built an upcycling program at Alex Mill with unsold inventory and I approached waste through an academic lens via writing, facilitation, and lecturing. Now I am tackling these issues at a scale that is much more impactful and satisfying than anything I’ve done before, given that Goodwill keeps billions of pounds of goods in circulation every year. The impact is tangible.

Working in impact is often about driving change. What is the skill or trait that has been most important for your work as a change agent? How did you learn or hone it?

Passion! I bring a lot of passion to everything I do, for better or worse, and I always have. I think passion is essential to any impact job, primarily because the work is not always positive or uplifting. Being in the sustainability space requires that you do not turn a blind eye – you have to face issues head-on and you can’t give in to despair. You need to keep your engine going somehow.

The other important skill that is less innate for me is critical thinking. I am constantly reading between the lines, asking questions and never taking anything at face value. This ensures that my work is well-researched, my viewpoint is balanced and my sources are valid. Critical thinking also helps me make connections that are not obvious, which allows me to identify unexpected leverage points.

What most excites you about the impact space right now?

I am most excited about all of the innovation happening in the circular economy space, especially with textile recycling. It’s energizing to see new textile recycling technologies begin to operationalize and scale and I’m eager to see how legislation can support infrastructure to divert more textiles from the waste stream and into recovery cycles. I’m also constantly inspired by the amazing work across the Goodwill network to develop scalable solutions for textiles, including remanufacturing, fiber-to-fiber recycling, repair and more. There are also countless initiatives and partnerships at the local and regional level focused on hard-to-recycle items like plastics, glass, wood and textiles.

Photography: Jack O’Connor for Alex Mill.

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