A new report warns that rising sea levels could cause challenges for Asia’s apparel industry. It’s predicted that large apparel-producing areas in Asia will be underwater by 2030, according to Cornell University. In places like Jakarta and Phnom Penh, thousands of garment factories are at risk of flooding or relocation. However, sustainability drivers don’t do enough to address this problem.
The Open Apparel Registry, a database of open-source factories, was used for analysis. They compared factory locations with data from the Climate Central think tank on climate change. The data shows that these areas will drop in elevation once a year by 2030, in response to coastal flooding.
The apparel industry is frequently using OAR data, and this information may help brands make more sustainable decisions. In addition to making its data available to all industry stakeholders, the not-for-profit database seeks to tackle industry challenges.
Natalie Grillion, executive director of the OAR, said, “The case study from Cornell is illustrative of the urgency of our sector’s problems and a sobering reminder that we cannot wait any longer to act on our way to a more sustainable future.
Additionally, even though our findings are preliminary, the findings demonstrate the utility of our data and how it can serve to inform policy, investment, sustainability, and eco-sustainability initiatives in the sector globally.”
By offering a neutral, open-source tool for mapping garment factories worldwide, the OAR aims to improve data quality and to better the lives of workers in global supply chains. More than 1,800 facilities are included in the database, which also has more than 68,000 subscribers. Around 400 contributors provide the platform with data, and 120 countries have been mapped.
“A rapid rise in sea level and increasing temperatures that will have direct impacts on Asia’s apparel workers have received little attention,” authors Jason Judd and L. Jackson of the New Conversations Program at Cornell University wrote in their study. There appears to be no escape from the expected acceleration of the climate crisis for some apparel production centers.”
According to the paper’s authors, larger, transnational suppliers may be able to close facilities in vulnerable areas and consolidate production above ground, but smaller suppliers may be impacted the most, they said, citing Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest apparel exporter. Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association vice president Shahidullah Azim said of the findings, “We are concerned. This is a real threat. Even as factories become greener, our factories could sink.” We cannot move our factories overnight, since we are already experiencing unprecedented circumstances due to the pandemic. Where will we get the money? Who will pay us?”
In the study, published in Climate Central, open-source factory location data from the Open Apparel Registry was overlaid on data from the U.S. Think Tank on Climate Change that analyzed where elevation would drop below the level of a coastal flood on average once per year by 2030.
Global climate data from Climate Central is derived from peer-reviewed scientific journals, according to its website. By the end of the decade, the overlaid maps paint a grim picture for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Guangzhou, China, where half to sixty percent of factories will be below the average level of flooding.
In a statement, Saleemul Huq of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at Independent University, Bangladesh, said that the findings call for urgent action at the global level to reduce emissions to limit warming, while also providing funding for workers to adapt to climate change’s adverse impacts.
Rising sea levels are a threat to mankind as well and effective measures should be implemented shortly.
Source:
- https://fashionunited.com/news/fashion/rising-sea-levels-a-threat-to-asia-s-apparel-sector-report-says/2021102243086
- https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/asias-apparel-industry-threatened-by-rising-sea-levels-study-warns-2021-07-16/
Image Courtesy:
- https://unsplash.com/s/photos/rising-sea-level
- https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/07/07/sea-level-rise-horror-of-july-2021/
- https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2020/08/10/indonesias-garment-industry-in-crisis/
Written by Rafiad Ruhi
