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Dignity factory workers producing shirts for overseas clients, in Accra, Ghana

Cooling Before It Got Cool: Case Studies in Heat Adaptation in Southeast Asian Factories

Heat Adaptation in Apparel Factories

A new examination of how apparel factories are adapting to extreme heat while investing in cooling, automation, and climate resilience strategies.

A thermal image of a worker at a station in a garment factory, showing the high heat levels through brighter orange colors at their workstation.
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The Dindigul Agreement to End Gender-based Violence and Harassment

Has It Worked?

This is GLI’s official final assessment of the Dindigul Agreement to End Gender-Based Violence and Harassment at a South Indian apparel factory that could be a model for other factories around the world. 

Large room of garment factory workers
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Warming to the Idea? Labor Governance and Extreme Heat in Apparel Production

Impacts of Climate Change on Global Apparel Production

How have weather conditions already started to affect the apparel industry and how should the industry adapt? This policy brief builds upon past GLI research and our report co-produced with the IFC and the ILO's Better Work program to present new findings on the impacts of extreme heat and the adaptation responses from employers, workers, their governments and buyers in the global apparel and footwear industry. See our new research here.

Cambodian workers are seen in a local footwear manufacturing plant, with containers of materials in multiple colors sitting in front of workers wearing bandanas and many wearing masks as well.
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Measuring Supply Chain Due Diligence

Labor Outcomes Metrics

Read about the Global Labor Institute's new quantitative metrics that measure labor outcomes—actual impacts for workers.

Workers in Bangladesh
Read more about Measuring Supply Chain Due Diligence

Latest Research and Events

Knowing and Showing: Using Cornell GLI’s Labor Outcome Metrics for Due Diligence

Join us online 29 May for the launch of Cornell GLI’s Labor Outcomes Metrics, a new set of 25 quantitative measures to allow regulators, firms, unions and the rest of us to score, track and compare impacts over time. Registration required.
570 Lexington Avenue
Knowing and Showing: Using Cornell GLI’s Labor Outcome Metrics for Due Diligence

GLI Announces new visiting fellow MEP Samira Rafaela

Member of the European Parliament Samira Rafaela joins the Global Labor Institute for 2024 – 2025 as a visiting fellow of the Cornell University ILR School.
Samira Rafaela
GLI Announces new visiting fellow MEP Samira Rafaela

GLI Testimony on Trade and Labor for the US International Trade Commission, March 2024

Jason Judd shared findings from recent research and experiences on three under‐explored elements of apparel industry competitiveness: wage‐setting, labor outcomes for workers, and climate vulnerability and adaptation.
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GLI Testimony on Trade and Labor for the US International Trade Commission, March 2024

GLI 2024 Conference Rolls Up Sleeves to Tackle Global Apparel Production

“The progress of science begins with this sharing of knowledge, expertise and networks, and today we are guests of the Global Labor Institute conference where these three components converge,” said Samira Rafaela at the 2024 GLI Conference on Feb. 2.
Jason Judd at GLI Conference
GLI 2024 Conference Rolls Up Sleeves to Tackle Global Apparel Production

Presentation Angus Bauer, Schroders, and Jason Judd, Cornell University

Higher Ground? Climate breakdown and its impacts for global apparel production.
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Presentation Angus Bauer, Schroders, and Jason Judd, Cornell University

Presentation Sarosh Kuruvilla, ILR School, Cornell University

Groundhog Day. Or, How do we know what works to improve working conditions and advance labor rights?
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Presentation Sarosh Kuruvilla, ILR School, Cornell University

In The News

Media Mentions

How Climate Change Will Shape Fashion Supply Chains in 2026

Vogue
“The technology to cool workers is not complicated, and the costs are manageable in most countries,” said Jason Judd, executive director of ILR’s Global Labor Institute, sharing his expertise about how the garment industry is addressing climate change and heat stress in factories.
How Climate Change Will Shape Fashion Supply Chains in 2026

Justice for Jeyasre: how a brutal murder led to a better deal for garment workers in India

The Guardian
Sarosh Kuruvilla, academic director of the Global Labor Institute, provides an analysis of the Dindigul labor agreement and comments on why Natchi Apparels may be having difficulty finding new clients.
Justice for Jeyasre: how a brutal murder led to a better deal for garment workers in India

Can the fashion industry adapt to a warming world?

Context
“Workers toiling in 35 or 40 degrees Celsius and high humidity is the return of the literal sweatshop,” says this article about the garment industry and climate change, co-written by Jason Judd, executive director of the Global Labor Institute. The article cites the institute’s “Higher Ground?” report and offers solutions.
Can the fashion industry adapt to a warming world?

Hot Air: How will fashion adapt to accelerating climate change?

Impacts of Climate Change on Global Apparel Production

How have weather conditions already changed in major apparel production centers? In this follow-up to our Higher Ground? reports, we looked at the past twenty years of weather data in our 23 focus cities to try and find that out, as well as ask how workers, brands and retailers, manufacturers and their governments should react and adapt to our warming future in a world of corporate due diligence. Read our findings here.

A flooded area near to Phnom Penh, Cambodia
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Higher Ground? Fashion’s Climate Breakdown

Impacts of climate change on global apparel production

In partnership with Schroders, we report the impacts of climate change on global apparel production. In our first report, we track climate change impacts at the global, national, and factory levels. We map fashion's climate vulnerabilities across production centers, and estimate future economic damages from extreme heat and flooding. Our second report examines company-level climate risk, cost, and financing for adaption and just resilience.

Textile workers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Read the reports

Change or Groundhog Day? What new research tells us about what works in global labor governance

2024 GLI Conference Highlights

Samira Rafaela
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