“Transparency is a means to an end; it only matters if it triggers some kind of corrective action and is accountable to workers.”
This sentiment, stressed by Áine Clarke, head of labor rights in supply chains and investor strategy at the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRC) on a recent Shaken Not Burned sustainability podcast, epitomizes a major industry problem hiding in plain sight, while environmental damages caused by the fashion industry are well documented, social fallout is often underestimated.
Brands have made strides in transparency—publishing supplier lists, sustainability reports and touting new technologies. However, data from RepRisk confirms that two-thirds of all documented supply chain risk incidents in the fashion industry are social issues like poor working conditions, human rights abuses, etc. Global supply chain garment workers, notably women across Asia, bear the brunt of a business model that systematically transfers commercial risk onto the most vulnerable.
Blame the need for speed. “Over the past 40 years, the evolution of demand-driven business models has further put pressure on supply chains,” said Clarke. Fast fashion has evolved into ultra-fast fashion, complete with shorter production cycles, more frequent product launches and small-batch manufacturing, all which put significant pressure on suppliers and garment workers.
“Faster production cycles are being layered onto a system where commercial practices are already misaligned with worker protection,” she said.
Brands wield unbalanced power, with flexibility to alter orders, volumes and deadlines with little notice. Factories, and their workers, must often absorb costs, resulting in excessive overtime, intensified workloads, delayed wages and compromised health and safety standards.
Recent disruptions caused by U.S. tariffs illustrate this dynamic. Rather than absorbing costs themselves, “brands shifted orders and squeezed prices to protect their margins, and garment workers found themselves facing layoffs, hunger and rising risks of exploitation,” said Clarke, noting that the tariff crisis revealed a “systemic failure” of profit over people.
Transparency is Just the Beginning
Greater transparency has become an industry catchall to supply chain risk. Mapping suppliers, tracing raw materials and identifying production sites all improve visibility along the value chain, and indeed, companies with strong supply chain data are better positioned to identify risks and stay compliant with regulations.
However, Clarke argues that transparency isn’t the end but the beginning for meaningful change when it comes to social issues. Publishing supplier information or completing factory audits does not automatically improve wages, reduce excessive overtime or strengthen worker protections.
“If [worker] risk is identified, but commercial decisions remain unchanged, then transparency really just becomes documentation rather than prevention,” she said.
Audits, which the industry has long relied on to assess labor standards, are a step in the right direction but have inherent flaws. Many audit visits are pre-announced or pre-arranged, giving employers the opportunity “to meet the standards of the audit at the time they’re visited.”
Plus, inspections of documentation, payroll records and management interviews don’t necessarily capture workers’ lived experiences. “Power imbalances between management and employees” means that workers, if interviewed, don’t feel at liberty to speak freely for fear of retaliation.
And some of the most serious abuses—forced labor, coercion or debt bondage—can remain hidden during such brief assessments. Trade unions, collective bargaining structures and worker committees provide more continuous oversight than a single snapshot, but are not always possible.
Julia Botero, who hosted the podcast session, referenced a heavily curated influencer trip to a Shein factory in China a few years ago. When the influencers posted on social media how happy the workers were and how sparkling clean the facilities were, they received swift and harsh public backlash for towing the line.
Climate and Labor are Intertwined
Things are heating up around the world and worker rights are getting burned.
Extreme heat, flooding and other climate-related disruptions are increasingly affecting garment-producing countries across South and Southeast Asia, with growing impact on labor. Many workers are already living on the edge, and factory closures, production delays and reduced working hours pressure wages even more.
BHRC analyzed how the 65 largest apparel brands were addressing social risks associated with the climate crisis, and the findings were hardly encouraging.
“We found that across the board, companies are setting very ambitious climate targets and commitments to decarbonize their operations and supply chains, but factory workers, on whom the industry rests, were entirely missing from these conversations and these commitments,” said Clarke. “Companies are still seeing climate risk and social issues as divorced from each other.”
Are Regulations the Solution?
Consumers can flex their power of the purse against a company with a poor track record, but that will only go so far. Clarke believes systemic change ultimately depends on stronger governmental policy that moves corporate action from voluntary to mandatory.
Emerging legislation, including the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), represents an important step. “The final text is certainly not as strong as we would hoped it would be, particularly around this kind of stakeholder engagement and penalties for non-compliance,” said Clark. “I’m hopeful, but we need to wait and see how it transpires.”
While regulations can force compliance, there is also a business case for worker rights centered around human dignity. It’s a net positive to let workers contribute in a “healthy and meaningful way” to discussions taking place that affect them in factories.
“Productivity and engagement rates do improve when workers feel valued and respected,” she said.
