(New York, September 3, 2025) – The International Accord for Health and Safety in the Garment and Textile Industry should include heat stress as a core safety pillar in its mandate, Climate Rights International and 44 labor rights, climate change, and sustainable fashion organizations, and others, said in a joint letter published today ahead of the Accord’s Steering Committee meeting on September 12. Extreme heat, fueled by climate change, is a well-established occupational health and safety risk. As temperatures across the globe continue to rise, protecting workers from heat stress will need to become a central element of any credible and effective workplace safety program.

In recent years, the International Accord – a legally binding agreement between garment brands and trade unions – has emerged as a leading effort to protect the health and safety of those working in the garment industry. While the Accord currently integrates heat safety into their training initiatives and complaint mechanisms, it does not yet address heat stress as part of its binding inspection and remediation systems, which currently cover only fire, electrical, structural, and boiler safety. This gap in workplace protections under the agreement underscores the need for the Accord to modernize its mandate in response to evolving workplace risks caused by climate change.

“Extreme heat is a preventable threat to occupational safety,” said Cara Schulte, researcher at Climate Rights International. “As a champion of worker health and well-being, the International Accord has an opportunity to protect workers from preventable illness, injury, and loss of life by making heat safety the fifth pillar of its mandate.”

Signatories to the letter urge the International Accord’s Steering Committee, meeting next week, to expand its inspection and remediation programs to include heat risks, especially in rapidly warming countries with limited cooling infrastructure – like Bangladesh and Pakistan, where the Accord currently operates – and any other countries to which the Accord expands.

The joint letter comes in the wake of a recent report, “My Body Is Burning”: Climate Change, Extreme Heat, and Labor Rights in Bangladesh, in which Climate Rights International documented dangerously hot conditions faced by workers across key economic sectors in Dhaka. Garment workers, in particular, described experiencing frequent fainting, chest pain, heart palpitations, nausea, vomiting, and even temporary vision loss in the heat – some of whom reported having to labor over hot machinery, like irons, even during heatwaves. Others shared that the heat reduced their productivity, which limited their ability to stay hydrated and forced them to work additional, unpaid hours to meet targets. Workers explained that despite the extreme conditions, they are often not provided additional breaks or protections in the heat.

An Opportunity to Improve Worker Health and Safety

The International Accord’s binding safety agreements in both Pakistan and Bangladesh are scheduled to be renegotiated at the end of 2025 and 2026, respectively – providing a timely opportunity to close the gap and ensure that garment workers are better protected from the risks associated with rising temperatures.

Signatories urged the Accord to adopt clear, evidence-based heat protection standards and suggested a range of best practices to improve worker health outcomes – many of which are included in the newly published World Health Organization guidelines on occupational heat stress – including: 

• The implementation of scientifically-backed work-to-rest ratios, which prescribe adequate recovery times based on workload intensity and real-time environmental conditions;
• Maximum heat thresholds above which work must be stopped and return-to-work standards to ensure workers are able to fully recover following heat-related illness;
• Additional time for new workers, who are particularly sensitive to heat, to acclimatize to hot conditions;
• Schedule adjustments to help workers avoid working in peak heat conditions and job rotation to ensure that those exposed to radiant sources of heat, like irons or hot machinery, have breaks during peak heat hours;
• Ensuring adequate hydration, including access to clean, cold water and safe bathrooms at the worksite, and the provision of electrolyte beverages where necessary;
• Measures to guarantee that workers are not penalized for taking additional rest or hydration breaks in the heat; and
• The integration of low-cost and sustainable cooling interventions, such as the installation of cool roofs, improved ventilation, changing lighting layouts and workstation arrangements, and the use of low heat-emitting lights.

The letter was endorsed by 44 organizations across the world, including trade unions in both Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well as in Sri Lanka, which the Accord has identified as a possible country for future expansion; leading sustainable fashion groups, including Fashion Revolution and The Sustainable Fashion Forum; climate justice organizations, including HeatWatch and the Centre for Climate Justice, Bangladesh; academic research groups at Harvard, the University of California, and the National University of Singapore; and key worker’s rights groups, including Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates, the Bangladesh Institute for Labor Studies, the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), the Universal Access Project, and the Awaj Foundation.

“The upcoming renegotiations are a key opportunity for the International Accord to lead on climate resilience in the fashion industry,” said Schulte. “The evidence is clear: heat stress is a serious and growing threat to worker safety. By integrating heat protections as a core pillar of its mandate, the Accord can prevent workers from having to choose between their jobs and their health. As climate change continues to pose a more and more serious threat to workers across the world, there is no excuse for delay.”