(New York, April 27, 2026) — Apparel brands should take immediate steps to implement new guidance released by the American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA), Climate Rights International said today. The voluntary guideline, developed in consultation with retailers, brands, manufacturers, and material suppliers, provides “practical and actionable” recommendations that aim to help companies prevent and respond to workplace heat risks across their supply chains.
The AAFA, which represents over 1,000 major brands, is the first industry trade group to define maximum workplace heat thresholds, including in jurisdictions without workplace heat regulations. They also recommend structural cooling and ventilation improvements, adjusted workloads, improved access to water and rest, heat-stress education, and medical monitoring. Critically, the guidelines emphasize shared responsibility between buyers and suppliers, challenging industry norms that have previously left suppliers to shoulder the burden of climate risks alone.
“Heat stress is a serious threat to fashion workers in supply chains across the globe, and it isn’t going away,” said Cara Schulte, researcher at Climate Rights International. “These new standards mark a growing recognition across the fashion industry of climate risks faced by workers and are a necessary if belated response to growing heat-related harms. If implemented effectively, they could be an important first step in helping to advance the right to safe and healthy working conditions for millions of garment workers worldwide.”
Together with the recent commitment by the International Accord for Health and Safety in the Garment and Textile Industry to develop a protocol on heat stress, these efforts signal growing momentum across the industry to address rising temperature risks in garment supply chains.
Climate Rights International’s latest research on extreme heat, labor rights, and fashion supply chains—cited in the AAFA recommendations—highlights why these types of standards are so urgently needed. In major garment-producing countries, extreme heat exposure is already a daily reality for workers, often in contexts where legal protections are either limited or poorly enforced. Workers frequently lack the ability to refuse unsafe conditions, or even engage in behaviors to protect themselves, without risking retaliation or loss of income.
In both Bangladesh and Pakistan, Climate Rights International documented adverse impacts of workplace heat on garment workers’ physical, mental, and financial health. Workers told Climate Rights International that they often felt nauseous, dizzy, and disoriented on the job. Others experienced symptoms like heart palpitations, blurred vision, and muscle tremors while working. Many reported either having fainted themselves in the heat or having witnessed a colleague collapse on the factory floor. A pregnant worker in Dhaka explained: “Almost every day [in the hot season], in our factory, five to seven people faint. Five to seven people just fall down.”
In Karachi, another worker recalled working through outdoor temperatures as high as 45C (113F). “You can imagine how much hotter it becomes inside, where machinery, bodies, and fabric all trap heat,” he said. But despite these conditions, workers reported limited protective measures: “There are no fans, no cooling units, no ventilation. [We] workers are simply left to struggle.”
These stories are indicative of an alarming trend across the fashion industry, in which companies and buyers in high-income countries offload climate risks onto workers in low-income regions. And as global temperatures continue to rise, the stakes for workers are only increasing.
With more than two billion workers exposed to excessive heat on the job each year, the AAFA recommendations represent an important acknowledgement of heat-related risks, outlining actionable steps companies can take to better protect both their workers and their business models. Notably, however, the guidelines are voluntary. Without binding standards and effective enforcement, implementation will likely be inconsistent, leaving many workers exposed.
“Safe work is obligatory, not optional,” said Schulte. “To meaningfully protect workers, the industry will need to move toward binding standards that can enforce accountability, and brands will need to ensure their purchasing practices don’t create or contribute to unsafe conditions.”
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Photo: A garment factory in Bangladesh. Photo credits: Tareq Salahuddin/ Wikimedia Commons (licensed under CC by 2.0)
