The missing thread: Workers absent from fashion companies’ climate plans
shutterstock
As the climate crisis intensifies, fashion brands are stepping up their environmental pledges—setting targets to slash emissions, transition to renewable energy, and build “green” factories. But across the industry’s global supply chains, the workers who power these ambitions remain largely invisible in the transition. In production hubs already grappling with extreme heat, flooding, and climate-linked wage instability, workers are facing rising risks with no seat at the table. Far from the runways and boardrooms where sustainability targets are set, the reality is unfolding in overheated factories and precarious homes where those most affected by climate change are excluded from the decisions shaping their futures.
This new report by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre reveals how 65 top fashion brands are failing to integrate worker rights and representation into their climate strategies. Based on a detailed review of publicly available social and environmental policies, the research is enriched by insights from garment workers and trade union representatives gathered through in-country convenings in Bangladesh and Cambodia. The findings highlight a troubling disconnect: companies are driving rapid decarbonisation, yet workers are excluded from both planning and protections for a just transition. The result is a transition that risks entrenching existing inequalities, rather than building resilience and shared prosperity across supply chains.
The brands named in the report were contacted in advance of publication to verify the environmental and social policies reviewed and to respond to preliminary findings. Throughout the report, examples of better practice by brands when it comes to centering workers are highlighted, alongside guidance and recommendations for companies ready to build partnerships with workers and their trade unions to tackle climate change and the decarbonisation challenge along supply chains.
