Doen's Director Of Impact Kristine Kim on their 2030 Roadmap & the importance of welcoming discomfort when navigating value chain impact work

In episode 286, Kestrel welcomes Kristine Kim, the Director of Impact at Doen, to the show. An LA-based women-run business, Doen offers collections inspired by a nostalgia for the coastal California of decades past. Doen recently unveiled their 2030 Roadmap, spearhead by Kristine, which provides an overarching blueprint for the business that will encapsulate both social and environmental elements of impact.

“We wanted to see our supply chain as a value chain — not just as a global supply chain that creates beautiful products, but also generates social and environmental value across that process as well, and to find opportunities for us to maximize that social and environmental value.” -Kristine

You’ve probably heard me say this on the show before, but the fashion and sustainability space has an issue with obsessing over binaries – I mean, it’s not the only space constantly questioning what’s right vs wrong or good vs bad. 

These very simplified binary structures have been deeply embedded into our society – by way of concepts from white supremacy, colonialism, and the patriarchy. They also lead to a lot of pinning one perspective against another – which doesn’t help us move forward collectively, and instead tends to force us to choose one side over the other. 

I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again, but there is a lot of gray area here — a lot of nuance that must be welcomed so we can actually get somewhere in our efforts to transform the fashion industry.

This week’s guest leads impact at Doen, and she is determined to accept the challenges that come with these *gray areas*. 

As she said in a recent blog post:

“Like any industry, ours is often viewed—but does not actually function—within a black and white framework of right vs. wrong, sustainable vs. unsustainable. We know that labeling any brand as a “sustainable fashion brand” is greenwashing and misleading, but have we challenged ourselves beyond this? Every business on a sustainability journey will be confronted with a series of complex micro and macro decisions, often on a daily basis. The “right” answer for each organization looks different, and requires collective problem-solving and collaboration. Weighing all of the various trade-offs involved in any single action is the real impact work facing companies.”

This acknowledgement is key and I find it so refreshing coming straight from a Director Of Impact. She’s recently unveiled the company’s 2030 Roadmap, which represents their desire to do better in an imperfect industry.

Quotes & links from the conversation:

• “Kristine Kim On Defining Impact For Doen”, blog post Kristine wrote about the 2030 Roadmap

• “The main intention that I wanted to communicate to the organization was — this type of value chain work, this type of sustainability work in fashion is very not straightforward, it’s nuanced, multiple shades of gray, it’s not a black and white binary, right or wrong, you’re sustainable or you’re unsustainable. And trying to get comfortable with that level of ambiguity and unfamiliarity is what I really wanted the teams to openly embrace.” -Kirstine (21:38)

• Empower@Work, collaborative effort that Doen has joined

• Doen’s 2030 Roadmap

• Hand Me Doen

• Follow Doen on Instagram >