Climate change is a threat to Bangladeshi garment and textile manufacturers. A study by Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute showed that, without climate action, 35 percent of Bangladesh’s apparel-producing areas could be flooded regularly by 2030.
A large-scale flood like the one witnessed recently in Pakistan could spell havoc for Bangladesh’s textile industry as the heatwave last year dented productivity. The riverside factories face flooding risks.
Experts are worried because, across the garment industry, measures to address climate change remain inadequate. They assert that climate change can cause an average loss of 2-2.5 percent in daily work hours. A study by Australia’s Griffith University revealed that even during normal summer garment workers often experience symptoms like headaches, fatigue, or nausea due to heat, that hamper productivity of textiles. Bangladesh employs 4.5 million textile and garment workers of which include 60 percent are women.
Providing better ventilation and cooling on the factory floor and making water available to workers are among the measures suggested in the Griffith University study. A report by, a Finnish NGO that promotes responsible business conduct, highlighted how garment workers – many of them migrants from disaster-prone rural areas – face increasingly hot and humid conditions in their urban workplaces.
Pressure on clothing factories to adopt greener production methods and to protect their workers and operations from the negative effects of climate change is coming largely from global brands, as well as regulation in key export markets. As the EU steps up climate action, companies are being required to report on planet-heating carbon emissions not only from their direct operations but also those caused by their supply chains, known as “scope 3” emissions.
The World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) runs a programme that supports factories in Bangladesh to take measures to curb their environmental and climate impacts. The Partnership for Cleaner Textile (PaCT) has helped more than 400 factories reduce water use equivalent to the annual needs of almost 1 million people and to cut greenhouse gases equal to taking more than 100,000 cars off the road.
BRAC University’s “Mapped in Bangladesh” initiative tracks more than 3,700 apparel factories nationwide and provides an open information system that can guide brands on how factories are approaching safety and sustainability issues. The map’s builders are now working to add an environmental dimension by listing which suppliers have green certifications such as the Global Recycled Standard and Nordic Ecolabel.
Fashion brands, for their part, could play a bigger role through actions like contributing a small percentage of their garment sales to support green reforms in Bangladesh and offer better opportunities for workers, experts said.
