As a Bangladeshi national, we know Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry is a major economic factor now for this small but fast developing country. I feel it’s time to learn to ensure effective contribution to the environment since the impact is spread up as large scale as the social impacts are for the RMG industry.
If a thread can have an impact on the final goods, then we must not forget that a unit deviation of the environmental parameter will have massive impact on the global environment. Cheap labour which one is the strong factors behind the success of Bangladesh in apparel sector in the global export markets, also living their lives in a cheaper environment with higher population and contamination coming externally where their health is not safe as they need.
At the time when we started talking about the climate change and related adaptation strategies and mitigation measures, Pakistan facing worst flood calamity in their history threating to the whole world actually. And things are not limited with water but the heat wave in these days we have experienced is all way alarming. The people of the world just taking breath despite of COVID-19 blown every corner of all the countries leaving the resources and experts behind the door by giving no opportunity of doing anything before losing millions of lives.
For years social protection initiatives are being following and things have been developed a lot. National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) founded in 1896; international labour standards setting body International Labour Organization (ILO) founded in October 1919; International standard-setting body International Organization for Standardization (ISO) founded in 1947; Foreign Trade Association (FTA-1977) created the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), now amfori BSCI in 2003; French Federation of Commerce and Distribution (FCD) created Initiatives for Compliance and Sustainability (ICS) in 1998; Social Accountability International (SAI) come in 1997; Sedex Member Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) founded in 2001 and then launched in 2004; Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP) in 2000, ILO & IFC collaborated Better Work program in 2004; Fair Trade International in 2007 and many more.
To be adopted with environmental changes; Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) initiated in 2002; Partnership for Cleaner Textile (PaCT) in 2013; Business Environmental Performance Initiative (BEPI/amfori BEPI) in 2013; Global Recycle Standard (GRS) in 2008; Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) in 2011; Sustainable Apparels Coalition (SAC) in 2010 and several other initiatives started along with Bangladesh Labour Act (2006), Bangladesh Labour Rules (2015), Bangladesh Environmental Conservation Act (1995) and Bangladesh Environmental Conservation Rules (1997).
We need to know environment in deep so that we can highlight the climate change mitigation measures & adaptation strategies by the Firms, suppliers, and other stakeholders of Bangladesh in the garments and textile industries. ILO conventions and recommendations with the help of national and international initiatives as stated above could stabilize the damage and may open new windows for next required initiatives to cope up with the environmental changes. We must engage ourselves and I can start with me at least.
Author: Md. Mahfuz Ul Bashar Manager, Compliance Department Bangladesh Liaison Office Crony Tex Sourcing Ltd. and Tex Alliance France S.A. Email: mahfuz@cronytex.com
