AAFA issues heat stress guidance to protect garment workers

It suggests structural improvements, promoting buyer-seller shared responsibilities

FE Team | Published: April 27, 2026 22:25:29

Monira Munni
A major US-based fashion trade group has issued guidance to address rising heat stress, recommending setting maximum workplace heat threshold and structural mitigation strategies and promoting shared responsibility between buyers and suppliers.
The guidance, issued on April 17 last by American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA), said protecting workers in the apparel, footwear, and travel goods industry from extreme heat is becoming increasingly important as global temperatures and the incidence of heat stress in the workplace continue to rise.
It intended to provide practical and actionable recommendations that can be operationalised in supply chains to implement policies and procedures to both mitigate and prevent excessive heat days and to protect workers when excessive heat days occur.
'The AAFA Guide to Protecting Workers from Heat Stress' also called on brands and buyers to support responsible purchasing practices that allow suppliers to implement heat mitigation measures, including reasonable lead times and pricing that account for worker protection measures.
Citing ILO's (International Labor Organization) data, it said 18,970 deaths and 22.87 million occupation injuries are linked to excessive heat in the workplace mainly because of radiant heat from machinery, high work intensity, dehydration, inadequate air quality and insufficient temperature controls.
Studies suggest that workers can suffer from a range of heat related health problems with experiencing symptoms including excessive sweating, dehydration, itchiness, headaches, fever, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps, chest pain, heart palpitations and even temporary vision loss.
According ILO and Global Labor Institute (GLI) at Cornell University study, Dhaka witnessed a significant 56.1 per cent rise in the average number of hot days over 35 degrees Celsius during the last two decades causing severe and frequent heat waves and flooding directly impacting worker health and factory output.
There is a high risk of harm and productivity loss with most work capacity already lost at 33°C while at 38°C (100.4°F), work becomes impossible unless risk mitigating strategies are implemented, according to ILO.
The AAFA guidance is designed to support companies in several areas, including determining when workplace heat conditions become excessive, monitoring and recording heat conditions at the facility level and tracking and responding to heat-related illness.
It suggested preventing, mitigating, and managing excessive heat days through practical workplace measures through developing heat action plans and response procedures and strengthening worker training, awareness, and monitoring programs.
It also encourages factories to establish heat thresholds, adjust workloads, and water and bathroom breaks in accordance with heat conditions, and strengthen alignment with applicable workplace health and labour requirements.
The guidance emphasizes the importance of communication between buyers and suppliers and between suppliers and their workers as every decision to protect workers from heat stress can involve costs, impact production, affect workers, and change timelines.
Regular communication between suppliers, buyers and the workers themselves, is critical to make any effort to protect workers from heat stress a success, it noted.
The guidance was composed with representatives from the entire supply chain - retailers, brands, manufacturers, and material suppliers - and with consultation with key stakeholders representing both the industry, academia, MSIs, international organizations, NGOs.
A Cornell University study warned that extreme heat waves and flooding pose a grave threat to the projected apparel-export earnings of four Asian nations - Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Pakistan - with a potential loss of US$ 65 billion by 2030.
It warned that Bangladesh alone may face a US$27 billion worth of export wipeout and 250,000 job losses in its fashion-manufacturing industry.
Munni_fe@yahoo.com