The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 triggered disruptions across the apparel industry’s global supply chains. Operations halted in countries supplying material inputs, and retail demand plummeted. Apparel orders—some of them completed and already en route to brands and retailers—were cancelled. The fallout from these events included closures of thousands of retail stores and apparel factories, resulting in layoffs and furloughs affecting millions of workers. Labor force survey data in 2020 confirmed that apparel and footwear production in Asia was among the manufacturing sectors most harshly impacted by working hour and employment losses (ILO, 2021). The shocks tested the capacity of policymakers and regulation, both public and private, to support livelihoods and then recovery in the industry.

These effects of the pandemic on apparel and footwear workers have attracted significant attention. The focus of much of this research has been to examine the immediate effect of the pandemic on suppliers and workers. Emblematic of this stream of research is Mark Anner’s survey of Bangladeshi suppliers (Anner, 2022) which highlights how the extreme power asymmetries between global buyers and their manufacturers caused some of the factories to shutter and workers to go without pay in countries with limited social protection systems. A 2020 ILO/Cornell Research brief (ILO, 2020c) painted a similar picture across most Asian garment-producing countries. A follow-up paper (Judd & Jackson, 2021) tracked longer-term changes in the global apparel industry with a view to assessing future trajectories. The authors articulate different scenarios: a ‘Repeat’ scenario in which long-evident patterns of industry governance, structure, and sourcing continue; a ‘Regain’ scenario, involving shifts in structure and sourcing but not governance; and a ‘Renegotiate’ scenario, in which industry actors negotiate changes to all three aspects of the industry.

This paper builds on these prior efforts. We ask two research questions here. First, what have industry actors learned during the pandemic for remediating its impacts and mitigating the effect of future crises on apparel suppliers and workers? And second, what policies and actions can advance sustainability and inclusivity in the global apparel sector? Answering these questions required obtaining the perspectives of apparel buyers, manufacturers, governments, unions and labor rights organizations in some of Asia’s leading apparel-producing countries. In order to do this the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Global Labor Institute at Cornell University (formerly the New Conversations Project) convened focus group discussions organized by constituency in May 2022. Participants in the discussions were representatives of four governments, six apparel brands and retailers, six manufacturers and manufacturers associations, seven unions, and six labor rights organizations. These participants come from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The countries represent substantial shares of world apparel exports and imports, and the thirty participants have decades of experience working in global apparel supply chains. (Annex 1 lists the questions to which participants responded).

Fashion focuses its climate change efforts on goals such as increasing use of recycled fabrics, reducing water usage, and cutting down its very high greenhouse gas emissions—fashion ranks third on greenhouse gases behind global food production and construction.

But fashion’s mitigation efforts largely ignore the effects of climate breakdown on the workers, communities and industries who produce the world’s garments. This is the problem of adaptation and it is not part of fashion’s plan.

In these two “Higher Ground?” reports from the Global Labor Institute at Cornell University and Schroders, we measure the present and future risks of exposure to extreme heat and flooding in some of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries for apparel workers, suppliers, fashion brands and investors.

The aim of these two reports is, first, to understand the industry’s exposure to climate risks and the costs of climate adaptation for workers, manufacturers, buyers and investors, and governments. And, second, to inspire industry actors to formulate adaptation strategies that are large-scale and fit for purpose. We want to see these new measures and costs written into the business plans of the fashion industry, into collective agreements, and into budgets and objectives of regulators.