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This report – based on interviews conducted in Karachi during October 2025 – documents how escalating temperatures, inadequate workplace protections, and systemic labor rights abuses intersect and together threaten workers’ health, livelihoods, and basic rights. Our findings point to a consistent pattern of extreme workplace heat exposure, wage loss linked to heat-related illness, and a near-total absence of adequate heat management systems inside factories, providing a detailed account of how, as climate change accelerates, mass-market brands continue to profit from production models that leave workers dangerously exposed to climate risks.

Workers in Karachi told Climate Rights International they often feel suffocated while working through extremely hot temperatures inside factories and textile mills. Many reported chronic symptoms of heat stress, including dizziness, nausea, headaches, blurred vision, rapid heart rates, and muscle cramps...

Workers reported that the physical and emotional burdens brought on by rising workplace temperatures also negatively impacted their livelihoods, describing how hot factory conditions often slowed their productivity, causing them to work less efficiently, fall ill more often, and lose wages due to missed work...

But despite the growing risks, workers explained that both factory and mill authorities and the brands sourcing from them do little to protect them from the heat. Even in extreme conditions, production targets remain unchanged...

Many reported little to no ventilation in their workplaces, with some noting that their factories keep doors or windows closed during work hours. Others said their workplaces don’t even have fans...

Workers further described how widespread labor rights violations compound these challenges...Many told Climate Rights International of extremely low wages...and payment structures that force them to continue working through dangerously hot conditions... Others described strict restrictions on breaks, harassment for slowing down, and fear of retaliation for resting or speaking up about the conditions...

Nearly all of the workers interviewed recounted inconsistent access to clean drinking water, with many describing workplace water sources as hot, unclean, and even “muddy.”...

And because bathroom breaks are either explicitly or implicitly discouraged, many reported limiting their water consumption to reduce their trips to the bathroom, leaving them dangerously dehydrated in the heat...

Still others noted workplace rules prohibiting water bottles at workstations.

These difficult conditions are often made worse by inadequate medical support...

Several workers reported barriers to unionization, leaving employees without formal mechanisms through which to collectively raise concerns or negotiate protections; and almost all commented on the near-total lack of safety training on heat risks....

Many said they remain silent about these struggles due to fear of retaliation...

Through open-source research, we traced the factories and mills in Karachi in which these unsafe conditions occurred to leading apparel and home goods brands that source from them, including H&M, Inditex (Zara), GAP, MANGO, ASOS, C&A, NA-KD, NEXT, and IKEA... While all of these companies have made public commitments to support workers’ fundamental rights, those commitments are belied by the lived reality of workers on the ground.

Only one of the companies tied to the hazards and abuses detailed in this report – NEXT...told Climate Rights International that it currently has detailed heat protection guidelines for suppliers in place. Another, H&M, reported that it plans to introduce heat guidance in the coming year. But prior correspondence with Climate Rights International shows that H&M guidelines will recommend “taking local legal limits for maximum temperature for working into account,” which Pakistan has yet to establish.

While other brands named in the report have included provisions in their supplier codes of conduct or broader due diligence programs that require safe and healthy workplaces, these assurances fall short of adequately addressing growing, heat-specific occupational risks.

Climate Rights International’s investigation documented significant barriers to compliance with existing occupational health standards. Several of the brands pointed to inspections or third-party audits as evidence of oversight. But workers and experts interviewed for this report described routine preparations ahead of factory visits, like additional cleaning, water cooler restocking, and even the use of additional fans, designed to mask the reality of everyday working conditions...

Key stakeholders, including the government, brands, and factory authorities, should work in coordination to advance the following preventative measures in an effort to better protect garment and textile mill workers from climate-related occupational risks:

• Ensure workers can engage in adaptive behaviors during peak heat conditions...
• Guarantee access to clean, cool drinking water and safe sanitation for all workers...
• Strengthen realization of fundamental labor rights...
• The government of Sindh should develop and enforce a provincial heat protection guideline for worker health and safety...
• Brands sourcing from Pakistan and suppliers operating in the country should develop and enforce comprehensive heat-stress management plans across supply chains....

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