What Happens When It’s Too Hot to Make Fashion?

0:00Hi, it's Imran. While I'm taking some holiday, we'll be sharing some new episodes of The Debrief. Hosted by my colleagues Sheena Butler-Young and Brian Baskin, The Debrief goes deep inside our most popular BOF professional stories with the correspondents who created them. Beginning in September, a new episode of The Debrief will come out every Tuesday here on this feed, as well as The Debrief's own dedicated feed. So subscribe now if you haven't already. We'll be back to regularly scheduled programming of the BOF podcast on Friday, September 6th.

0:46Hello, and welcome to The Debrief from the Business of Fashion, where each week we go deep on our most popular BOF professional stories with the correspondents who created them. I'm senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young. And I'm executive editor Brian Baskin.

1:03Every summer, news headlines are dominated by reports of extreme heat, deadly floods and catastrophic weather events fueled by the climate crisis. South and Southeast Asia are in a state of emergency after extreme heat levels. Record-breaking temperatures in Bangladesh, the Philippines and Thailand... Hundreds of millions of people across South and Southeast Asia are facing soaring temperatures and drought as a heat wave grips the region. Let's talk more now about what is happening in India, recording its highest ever temperatures, Delhi, hitting 52.3 degrees Celsius. The government's weather bureau...

1:39Many of fashion's largest manufacturing hubs in South and Southeast Asia have been hit by dangerous, record-breaking heat waves. Due to the heat, unions report that garment workers have fallen ill and factories have experienced increased absenteeism, lower productivity and malfunctioning equipment. By this point, we're all well aware of rising temperatures, but questions remain. Is the fashion industry ready to handle the heat? And who bears the responsibility to make sure we are? To dive into this further, we're speaking to Sarah Kent, sustainability correspondent at the Business of Fashion. Hi, Sarah.

2:15Welcome to the Debrief podcast. Hi, guys. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for being here. So, Sarah, you've written a number of articles for years now for BOF on the topic of climate change. The most recent was a story headlined, What Happens When It's Too Hot to Make Fashion? And for this story, you spoke with garment workers in the Philippines and elsewhere who had actually experienced some appalling conditions in factories during these heat waves. To begin, when we talk about extreme heat, what exactly does that mean? We've all experienced being uncomfortably hot. Everyone's been there.

2:51But extreme heat is dangerous. This is when it gets so hot that the body can stop functioning. And, you know, that isn't what has been happening in factories at the moment. But it's been bad enough that workers are getting ill. And this is anecdotal because this isn't data that is being gathered systematically at the moment. But unions report, you know, you hear increases in workers reporting symptoms from headaches, dizziness, nausea, increase in urinary tract infections because people are dehydrated. You know, people are fainting. And if it were to get much worse and really bad, this could become fatal.

3:27Certainly, thankfully, not yet in fashion factories. But these record breaking heat waves that we're seeing around the world, they are deadly. And this is being exacerbated by the pre-existing conditions in these factories that probably weren't especially worker friendly to begin with. There was one detail in your story that really stood out to me, which was a worker you spoke with who literally couldn't take a break from sewing to get a glass of water in the middle of a heat wave in an un-air conditioned factory. Yeah, and this is not uncommon. Not all factories, of course, but because factories work at quite a brutal pace where you're trying to hit these high quotas for production, they're very regimented in how much break time workers on the production lines essentially can take.

4:14And so taking a break to go to the bathroom or taking a break to get water may not be allowed. Or on the flip side, for factories that are trying to operate responsibly when it's very hot and they give workers more time for breaks to take water, then they suffer on the other end because they can't produce to meet their quotas at the same rate. It's interesting because to your point, Brian, and to what you said, Sarah, this isn't new, right? The factories have had really poor conditions, some of them for a long time. But there's something distinctly difficult now. Compare what you're seeing now to 10 to 20 years ago.

4:46What's so new about this heat wave? We are in record-breaking heat. Every month for the last 12 months, we've broken new records around the world for how hot it is. So this is new. We knew climate change was coming. This is it. It's here now. And it's come faster and hitting harder than many people had anticipated. I mean, I think generally speaking, it wasn't expected that we'd see this rate of heat coming and lasting as long as it is at the time where we are now. And there are other factors that are exacerbating this at the moment. You know, we've got the El Nino effect at the moment, which makes it hotter.

5:19But there is no denying that the record breaking heat that we've been seeing over the last 12 months has been exacerbated by climate change. And what we can expect going forward is that these heat waves that we're seeing now that are already here are going to come more frequently. they're going to be hotter and they're going to last longer. Probably deadlier too. You spoke with workers in your story, a handful of them, but I don't imagine that those are the ones that are maybe getting out on the front lines and advocating they're probably not in power to do so. Who are the voices that are speaking out about this and what are they saying?

5:51That's a really interesting question because when I was speaking to unions for this, they said this is a challenge because this is not going to be the top issue for any worker. The biggest issue for a worker is going to be, okay, I'm not earning enough to feed my family, my job isn't secure, and then, oh, it's really hot, that's making it worse. So it's hard to engage people on the heat when that is seen as kind of a subsidiary issue to those core underlying challenges they face. So increasingly, unions are going out and trying to sort of link the issues of climate to the issues that their constituents are facing every day.

6:33But that is an ongoing challenge. And the same is true of those on the manufacturing side and trying to figure out how you connect what feel like external factors to what is going on in your business. And I think that is something that the industry is just beginning to come to grips with. Yeah, that raises an interesting point. I'm surprised that this isn't more on the manufacturers and the brands radar because you outlined some pretty significant costs in your story of the heat, you know, even beyond the human toll that we've been discussing. Can you talk about that a bit? Yes. So it is really interesting because, you know, the issues around labor are significant and important.

7:12But we've seen time and time again in this industry that when you can make more money for your labor, you will. However, the heat causes productivity issues because people are retired, they can't work as hard, they have to take more breaks. They're going home after lunch because they're feeling unwell. So productivity declines. Also, when it gets really hot, and in parts of Pakistan and India, for instance, you saw temperatures rise up to and beyond 50 degrees Celsius, really, really hot. Machinery can't function as well. The machinery isn't built for this. Quality control suffers because say you're trying to dye a fabric, you actually need quite specific conditions in the room and suddenly you're dealing with these fluctuations in heat and humidity, which can ruin the quality of what you're trying to produce, or at least the consistency of it.

8:01And even air conditioning units in some places stop working. So you've got machinery breaking down, you've got a workforce that can't work because they're unwell, and you've got productivity suffering as a result. But the reason why I think it isn't sort of coming up as a real supply chain issue at the moment is these extremes are short, sharp bursts. So you'll have a few days or a week where you've got these really extreme temperatures that are causing these surprisingly extreme issues. And then the extremeness of the heat goes away. It's still very hot, but it's not as acute. And the supply chain is flexible enough and sophisticated enough that that can be papered over at the moment, particularly at a time when demand is not at its peak.

8:43You know, we're still an economic downturn. Not all factories are working at full capacity all the time. So if your productivity isn't 100%, you can kind of manage that for a few days or a week. It feels like there's a bit of denial here on the part of brands and manufacturers. I mean, they must think, oh, that heat wave was terrible, but that won't happen again for a while. And we're entering a world, it sounds like, where, yes, it will happen again. It will happen more and more frequently. And pretty soon we're going to be in a situation where this just has to be factored into clothing production on an ongoing basis.

9:16And that is on the mind of manufacturers I spoke to, but what they struggle with is what to do about it. Because fundamentally, in most cases, adaptation to make your factory more resilient to extreme temperatures requires investment. And no one wants to have to put up prices that brands don't want to pay so they can invest to make their factories more resilient. Sarah, is it that complicated to have a solution in place at these factories? Is it that complicated to create a cooling system that make workers more comfortable, that don't cause the issues that you described in terms of production?

9:56Does someone just not want to invest in that? Is it a matter of desire? The simple answer is, yes, it can be that simple as installing air conditioning. The more complicated answer is that might not be enough in all cases, or not all factories are structured in a way that it is easy to install air conditioning or retrofit it. And then the longer answer laid on top of that is it's still expensive to install air conditioning. So you have to be able to pay for it. If you're sort of struggling to stay afloat as a business at all, because the prices anyone is willing to pay is so low, how do you pay to install air conditioning?

10:36And on top of that, it's not just the installation costs it's expensive to run so then you've got to pay for the power consistently at the same time the industry is investing in other areas to protect the supply chain from extreme heat can you tell us more about that so they're doing some investment but it's just not there so i think you want to break out kind of like broadly across the industry this is a problem and there's not enough focus and attention on it there are however individual brands, manufacturers that are focusing on this and are doing quite interesting things. So a few of the examples that we pulled out was that there are things that you can do to reduce heat levels in factories that are not that expensive.

11:16So for instance, one simple thing that has been flagged in different pieces of research is moving to LED lighting, which is more efficient and uses less energy. And so the lighting that you have in your factory will give off less heat. That will mean that is not as crazy hot in extreme temperatures. And that will pay back quite within a matter of months the investment you make because of the amount you save in energy because it's more efficient lighting. There was another example that we cited where a handful of unions in Cambodia negotiated in the most recent heat wave with sort of bosses at a group of factories to say, look, if temperatures reach a certain level, then you have to give a certain number of breaks at the time.

12:02So just putting in place specific frameworks that don't exist otherwise to say, okay, every hour you're going to get a 10 minute break. There was a denim factory I spoke to in Pakistan where they were like, look, we can't cool everywhere in the factory because, you know, we steam things. It's always going to be hot around there, but we've created specific air conditioned spaces. So there's at least somewhere cool for workers to go and take breaks. And I know lots of manufacturers, when they're looking at building new factories now, are specifically looking at things they can do to cool things down.

12:35So there's definitely things that can be done. It's just retrofitting everything that already exists that is difficult. The fact that temperatures are rising and weather patterns are becoming more extreme is hardly a secret, but it sounds like a very little investment is being made to adapt. It sounds like there's some individual facilities that have taken steps to mitigate extreme heat, but where ultimately will the pressure need to come from for system-wide changes? Whose responsibility is it to ensure that laborers across the entire Cambodian garment manufacturing sector are getting the proper protections?

13:19Well, that is a ginormous question. Lots of people have different perspectives on this, that there is a role for governments to play here, right? Extreme heat is an interesting issue because it affects everyone in a country. It doesn't just affect one sector. And so if a country is facing dangerous extreme heat, that is something that the government does need to look at and try and think of ways to address. And you've seen some countries put in place regulations where if temperatures hit a certain level, then no one goes to work or schools might close or there are other kind of mandates in place designed to ensure that people stay safe when it's very, very hot.

14:02In terms of ensuring that factory conditions are not dangerous, increasingly regulation for the brands is saying that it does fall on big companies to ensure that people working in their entire supply chain are protected. And so you're seeing regulation come in in Europe, for instance, where companies are going to be required to kind of manage and prevent labor abuses in their supply chains. And this will make them responsible for dangerous conditions. Would something like an extreme heat event count as a labor violation under these rules? Well, that's an interesting question. I think that is something that still needs to be decided.

14:43If people start falling seriously ill from the heat and that those two things are linked, then I think that is certainly a case that could be made. I don't think it's specifically written into the law as is right now. On the point of brands, I think it's interesting because just a year ago, we were dealing with maybe not to this degree, but extreme heat. And Sarah, you wrote a story last summer around some of the same issues. And it was like around this period of earnings reports, a flurry of earnings reports were out. And certainly you would think that brands would be talking about this. And I believe it was just one brand at the time, it was Montclair, that brought it up on an analyst call.

15:24And it was brought up in the context of someone asking a question. And it was the chief marketing and operating officer, Roberto Eggs, that put a positive spin on the question of what can brands do about extreme heat. And he said that Montclair had begun mixing its offering to provide both warm and light products throughout the year. So basically a business opportunity to offer new diversified product to meet the moment. Is that sort of how brands think about this? Is it, you know, finding the business opportunities? Is it a mix of both? I think it's a bit mix of both. And I would say probably in fairness to Montclair in the context of that call, the question, if I recall correctly, was not specifically about how are you managing laborers fainting in your supply chain.

16:11It wasn't a callous response in that context. But yes, I think, you know, we've kind of been talking around this issue. Why isn't this showing up in companies' considerations on analyst calls? I think to the extent that people are seeing it show up in their bottom line at the moment, it's more the consumer end. You know, we see people's consumption habits change when temperature changes. You know, that's very regularly. I'll see retailers talk in their quarterly reports. Oh, the weather was bad. So people didn't go out shopping. So our numbers are down. Or it was hot when we thought it would be cold and we had coats on the floor.

16:45And so, again, our numbers are down. So, you know, the unusual weather is showing up on balance sheets and companies are thinking about how to manage that. So you're seeing more trans-seasonal collections like what Montclair was talking about. What certainly doesn't appear yet to be showing up on analyst calls is the question of how you manage extremes and how that could affect your supply chain. And from what I understand, that conversation around adaptation isn't really happening yet at an industry-wide level either. And it's worth mentioning here that it's not necessarily always the case that a brand would even know that something like this happened in their supply chain.

17:28And Sarah, for listeners who aren't familiar with supply chain transparency and the many issues there, tell us why a brand can't just wave a magic wand and have all of its factories instantly giving workers water breaks and cool off rooms and the measures we've discussed. The first reason is that many companies don't know where the clothes they make are produced to begin with. Fashion supply chains are extremely complicated and fragmented, and companies will rely on a mass of suppliers across different countries, many of which may subcontract to others. And so understanding where your stuff comes from is very difficult.

18:03But on top of that, and we haven't really talked about this, is the way that the industry's model works is that brands are constantly trying to produce what consumers want as swiftly as possible, as cheaply as possible. And they're constantly going to their supplies and asking for them to cut prices and do the same thing at lower costs, which does not leave a lot of room for manufacturers to then go and say, oh, you know what? You also want us to make all of these investments to improve our environmental footprint and also adapt our factories so that they are resilient to climate extremes. We're going to need to raise the prices in order to do that.

18:45That becomes a very tricky conversation very quickly. So I think what you're saying here is that when brands talk about sustainability, they're mainly talking about their direct impact on the planet in terms of waste, in terms of emissions. And then when we talk about these supply chain issues, that often feels like a separate discussion. But I think what we've been saying here is that these are inextricably linked. Yes, I think brands would say they frame it that way, too, that they do see the interconnectivity between their impact on the planet and the impact on workers and that increasingly trying to bring those things together.

19:27The disconnect really is between the delightful picture of peace, love, kumbaya, green planet that the industry would like to suggest that it is gunning for, whilst at the same time paying prices that in no way support that. That's the kind of disconnect we're dealing with. And as a consumer, I just noticed when brands talk about sustainability, it definitely is, you know, the environmental impact, thinking about the planet almost in the abstract. I don't think these brands really want to be reminding people that there are actual people making these clothing in conditions we probably wouldn't want to experience ourselves.

20:14Yes, I think that is a very fair point. So, Sarah, how should different parts of the industry be preparing for a world where temperatures are systemically hotter? Is this the new norm? We have to assume that it is the new norm and or at least a new baseline. So it's not like every year will necessarily be as bad, but consistently over time, the expectation is things are going to get hotter for longer. And I don't think it can be an either or. Or we both have to take steps to mitigate and prevent things getting worse. And we have to accept that we have not done enough to stop things getting this bad.

20:52And so we have to adapt as well. The steps that can be taken to do that, some are easier, some are harder. We've spoken about a few different things that companies can look to do to cool down factories. Other extremes like flooding are a bit more complex. There's kind of limited things you can do if your factory is on a floodplain or vulnerable to flooding. I think it will take only a few bad disasters for the industry to really feel that and touch wood. We haven't seen them yet. Although I guess it bears mentioning that the industry also plays a role in causing these problems. It's a huge emitter of greenhouse gases.

21:27A lot of this issue is being caused indirectly in some small part or large part by the fashion industry. What should the industry be doing in terms of the, let's say, the supply side of climate change? Right. So this is why it's not an either or question. So on the one hand, there needs to be more conversations about how you adapt. On the other hand, and what the industry has been talking about more is what you do to mitigate and reduce. And so there are pretty much every large brand that you could think of, every household name, will have a plethora of climate-friendly pledges now saying that they're going to cut their emissions by 2030, that they're taking steps to reduce chemical usage, reduce waste.

22:16It all sounds very good. the issue is that by and large we're not making huge amount of progress towards these goals and the reason for that is even as companies and some are trying to make investments to reduce energy usage and operate using lower impact materials and lower impact technologies the industry keeps continuing to produce more and more and more to sell more and more and more to more and more profits, which is the natural urge of capitalism. But that then offsets any progress we're making on reducing emissions. I want to bring it back to the consumer again and how they fit into this.

22:56And you can correct me, Sarah, if I'm wrong here, but I think historically it's been very confusing to figure out how much consumers really, truly care in terms of how they spend on fashion. So I've touted this a lot in my own coverage that Gen Z and millennials or they shop with their values. They care about sustainability. They care about diversity and all these things. And then you look at the revenue numbers of companies that are doing anything but, let's just put it that way. And it doesn't line up to what we say consumers care about. Our headlines, like the ones out of South and Southeast Asia and, you know, what's happening at these factories.

23:30I mean, there have been instances where people have gotten really ill and maybe a few deaths. Is that enough to make consumers start to think a little differently or use their wallets when it comes to sustainability and climate change? No, I don't think so. But partly because it's quite abstract. The heat aside, it is not a secret for most shoppers that the conditions in which their clothes are made may not be ones in which they would want to work. And that has been well known since the sweatshop scandals of the 90s. You know, the industry has actually moved on quite a bit since then, but that hasn't changed people's shopping behavior.

24:09But I also think, you know, the conversation around whether or not consumers will buy this is an interesting one because we're sort of coming to what I think is the end of a first wave of exuberance around sustainability. And maybe the same is true for DEI, Sheena, you're much closer to that than I am, where companies kind of jumped on these topics thinking that they would be powerful tools they could use to market what they were doing. And I think the reality is actually this isn't something that is that marketable. And certainly it becomes very difficult to market it if you haven't done the work to back it up, which is what we saw kind of this first wave moving towards.

24:54But there are other more compelling business reasons why companies need to act on this. One being what we've discussed already, which is that weather extremes will hit productivity. Another being that regulation is stepping in and will require companies to handle this better. And a third being that as these weather extremes start to become more frequent and more sustained, it's not just going to be productivity that is dampened. It's going to be access to basic raw materials. Like you're seeing the areas in India and Pakistan where cotton can be grown shrink now because of weather changes. There's also potentially going to be, depending on, you know, where policies go, if governments really want to tackle this, it may be made more expensive to access fossil fuel based materials like polyester.

25:43You know, you kind of have to try and take a view on where politics are going to go here. The sticking points are productivity, regulation, and then access to raw materials. Those are what's going to move the needle for this industry, not the marketing and jargon and rhetoric, basically. I think so. And, you know, I think a lot of it loops back to where policy goes, because that will then influence what investors ask for, which will be a lever on companies too. And when it comes to policy, I'd say the biggest movement we've seen on that front was probably in the aftermath of the Rana Plaza disaster about a decade ago, where many, many hundreds of workers died in a building collapse.

26:27And that led to some pretty big changes, at least on paper in Bangladesh and in the West and how brands approach their supply chain. And how worried, bringing it back to the workers and the representatives you spoke to, how worried are they that we're headed towards something similar related to heat, where there could be an event where many people die or there's a real, you know, large scale disaster tied to this? And is there a concern that that might be the only way that real change happens? I definitely have had conversations along those lines that the only way the needle really moves on this is if something really disastrous happens.

27:07We've written about this in the context of the fashion industry, but there are many other industries who suffer from the same thing and more acutely. So, for instance, construction work where you're outside and you're doing really physical manual labor. It's hard if you're in a factory making clothes. Being on a construction site is hotter. When I was talking to people in Cambodia, they were, you know, I was talking to a few people who'd looked at this in regards to the fashion industry, but they were also looking at people who were working in brick kilns where you're literally next to a furnace and it's extremely hot.

27:38So I think that there are other industries where that kind of disaster might, I mean, I hope it doesn't come to that, but where that kind of disaster might happen first, because Rana Plaza, it moved the needle for many other industries, not just fashion. It really shifted conversations for industrial relations and supply chain policy more broadly. So, Brian, I think that may end up sadly being what it takes. I just don't know that it will happen in the fashion industry. And I hope it doesn't. So fashion may feel like it's been here before, but it's become increasingly clear that at some point the industry and its consumers won't be able to ignore or to use a word that Sarah did in a story, sleepwalk through these problems.

28:22Something really telling a story that you wrote a few months ago is this quote from a group director for sustainable business at a Sri Lankan manufacturing giant. This is what she said. Climate adaptation is as important as climate mitigation right now, but I've never had a conversation about climate adaptation with the wider industry. Sarah, how do you see this playing out? Well, I think that, you know, the great thing is we can start that conversation now. Those conversations are starting to happen. So all is not lost. We're all still here. We're still making and buying clothes. The industry still exists, but we can do it better.

28:59And that's where the focus should be. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Please be sure to check out Sarah's article, What Happens When It's Too Hot to Make Fashion, at businessoffashion.com. These and other stories are available only to BOF Professional subscribers, and you can find the links in the episode notes. You've been listening to The Debrief, produced and edited by Olivia Davies, mixed and mastered by Eric Bria. I'm Brian Baskin. And I'm Sheena Butler-Young. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Thanks so much for joining us and be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.