2025: Climate Change, Adaptation, and Just Transitions in the Global Fashion Industry
Climate change, particularly extreme heat, constitutes a major threat to global fashion production, including to workers, employers, and their governments. The $1.8 trillion global apparel industry urgently needs to accelerate adaptation efforts, in addition to decarbonization. Researchers propose pilots in five apparel factories in climate-vulnerable Bangladesh to test and cost firm-level adaptation investments. What combinations of factory-level investments/interventions work to protect worker health, improve earnings, and reduce overall emissions? Our research to answer the question will allow us to share actual return on investment calculations, plus finance options and labor regulations to create safer workplaces in a large-scale just transition.
Investigators: Sarosh Kuruvilla and Jason Judd (both Cornell ILR/Global Labor Institute)