Garment makers want more stimulus | The Daily Star thedailystar.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thedailystar.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Low-cost, cleaner production processes paying off
IFC-led initiative helped garment factories cut water, energy use
Bangladesh s textile and garment factories have significantly cut water and energy consumption by adopting low-cost and cleaner production processes and installing new technologies under a programme initiated by the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Some 338 washing, dyeing, spinning, weaving, and garment factories are saving 28.7 billion litres of water a year by adopting the solutions of the Partnership for Cleaner Textile (PaCT), a flagship programme of the private sector lending arm of the World Bank Group.
Similarly, the factories are saving 2.9 million megawatt-hours (MGh) of electricity annually and avoiding 558,391 tonnes of carbon emission, according to data from the PaCT.
Share
The 2013 Dhaka garment factory collapse, killing more than 1,100 workers and injuring 2,600 more, is the clothing industry’s worst ever industrial incident.
It is not just the body count, though, that made the collapse of the Rana Plaza, a nine-story building in the Bangladeshi industrial city of Savar (near Dhaka) capture global attention (briefly) and spur activism around the world to improve the treatment of garment workers.
This had been an accident waiting to happen. Structural cracks in the building had been discovered the day before. Businesses on the lower floors (shops and the bank) were closed immediately.
The five garment factories on the upper floors made their workers keep working. On the morning of April 24 2013 there was a power outage. Diesel generators at the top of the building were turned on. Then the building collapsed.
8 Yrs Since Rana Plaza Tragedy: Fruitful reforms rising from ruins thedailystar.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thedailystar.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Naimul Karim, Thomson Reuters Foundation
4 Min Read
DHAKA, April 22 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Labour activists on Thursday urged brands to extend a factory safety deal in Bangladesh ahead of the eighth anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster, in which some 1,100 workers died.
The collapse of the eight-storey building near Dhaka - the industry’s deadliest accident - on April 24, 2013 led some 200 brands, including H&M and Zara, to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. That agreement expires on May 31.
Labour leaders want the Accord to be renewed in Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest exporter of garments, and extended to other countries with dangerous working conditions.