The impact of COVID-19 on the textile and garment sector in Asian countries has been and continues to be immense and may last for a very long time. New COVID-19 outbreaks in Asia are pushing back hopes for a recovery in 2021 and the health and mental effects in communities are challenging pre-pandemic achievements related to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
A Just Transition for the garment industry in Asia is critical as the sector seeks to recover from the impacts of COVID-19. The pandemic has highlighted that vulnerability is not equally shared across the supply chain, so too for carbon emissions, with emissions concentrating in specific production activities, and these activities geographically concentrated in certain hot-spots areas that are both highly reliant on the textile and garment sector, but also highly vulnerable to supply chain disruptions and other impacts on the sector.
Over the last 30 years the textile and garment sector has created millions of jobs, mostly for women and in the formal economy. However, the environmental impacts of the sector are pronounced, including the resource intensity of production energy, land, water and chemicals and the creation of waste streams wastewater, solid waste, toxic waste & air emissions.
The social impacts are also mixed. Although the sector has provided employment, most of that employment is low-skilled and low-wage; the work is associated with high levels of overtime, poor working conditions, gender inequality and gender-based violence and harassment; and there are limited opportunities for career paths and skills development that could lead to more secure and better paid employment.
The need to reduce negative social and environmental impacts of the sector to address climate change, global resource constraints and meet the challenge of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has not diminished. Manufacturers surveyed in late 2020 from a range of production countries, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Viet Nam, state that, on average, prices received for the same items in 2019 have been reduced by 12 per cent in 2020 and payment times have been increased.
The garment supply chain is one of the most complex and globalized supply chains of any merchandise or commodity. While the sector contributes to industrialization, internationalization, and economic development in certain nations, it is also intensely competitive, with investors willing to move plants to other lower cost locations leading to a “race to the bottom” scenario for garment exporting countries.
Globally, textiles and garments accounted for more than US$798 billion in export trade in 2019, with world textile and apparel exports totalling US$305 billion and US$493 billion, respectively (WTO 2020). China, the European Union, and India were the top three exporters of textiles in 2015, accounting for more than 70 percent of global production. Based on these statistics, Asia plays a critical role in the textile and garment supply chain.
The sector also plays a critical role in employing people and provides large amounts of low-skilled employment that offer opportunities for workers to move from informal to formal work. For example, in Bangladesh the ready-made-garment sector was employing 4 million people in 2014, up from just 300,000 in 2000. The sector is one of the largest users of freshwater in the world, consuming an estimated 79 billion cubic meters of fresh water annually across the entire value chain. It is reported that 20 percent of industrial water pollution globally is attributable to the dyeing and treatment of textiles.
The ILO (2020) estimates that one in two garment workers had been affected during the first phase of the pandemic, either through loss of pay, loss of working hours or complete job loss, and that on average, garment workers had lost between two and four weeks of work. In the textile and garment sector it is common practice for payment for orders not to be received until after they are shipped. Therefore, cancelled orders have an immediate impact on the cash flow of the affected business, and flow back up the supply chain, as these businesses are unable to pay their suppliers for the raw materials, labour and other inputs.
