Workers in some of the world's biggest garment manufacturing hubs in Bangladesh, Vietnam and Pakistan are increasingly exposed to extreme heat as climate change pushes temperatures up, a report found on Sunday, highlighting a problem multinational retailers and brands will have to help address.
New European Union regulations make retailers selling in the bloc, like Inditex, H&M and Nike, legally liable for conditions at their suppliers, putting pressure on them to help fund improvements to cool factories they source from.
In Dhaka, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh and Karachi, the number of days with "wet-bulb" temperatures — a measurement that accounts for air temperature as well as humidity — above 30.5 degrees Celsius jumped by 42% in the 2020-24 period compared to the 2005-09 period, researchers at Cornell University's Global Labor Institute found.
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