Manufacturing in the Age of Climate Breakdown

Guest perspective from industry leaders
By Vidhura Ralapanawe

The news on climate and weather continues to be grim, with extreme heat taking hold of multiple countries, creating droughts and wildfires. Ocean heat is driving more intense cyclones while high heat in air, which carries high moisture increases rainfall intensity. The news is grim, with things becoming worse each year.

Welcome to the age of climate breakdown.

Heat has been in focus for the last few years -especially on years with El Nino – such as 2023/24 and now in 2026/27. This is of special concern for fashion manufacturers. Our industry infrastructure – or even national infrastructure globally – were never designed for the kind of intense heat that human-caused climate change has brought upon us.

When the temperatures rise – the slow creep upwards – as well as periods of extreme heat, can lead to conditions outside human comfort (and even tolerance) levels easily. Most of our industry (or any other industry) haven’t retooled our factories to operate under these conditions. The rapid acceleration of planetary heat from about 2023 has caught us unawares.

The Heat Challenges

The heat waves will challenge us in three significant ways.

It will push facilities outside safe and comfortable working conditions for our workers. These conditions are defined by the likes of ILO and OHSA based on limits of human physiology. In many parts of the world this is already occurring, as seen in research publications and press. This will only increase – for example in spring of 2027 when the temperature records globally are expected to be broken.

Reporting on conditions in manufacturing facilities will create negative publicity and regulatory responses. We spent years getting rid of the ‘sweat shop’ image that tarnished the name of our industry, and now climate crisis will turn our factories back to literal sweat shops.

This will also create proliferation of standards, audits and customer asks, normally also passing the full burden of fixing the problem and risk (including financing) to the manufacturers. AAFA has issued guidelines, multiple brands are issuing new checklists, organisations like RSC/Accord are working on new standards… Under current extreme pressure on margins, there will not be much space for manufacturers to address this issue meaningfully.

Towards a Collective Approach

The only way forward is to tackle this problem collectively, by the industry coming together and working together. This is what we should have done for decarbonization too. And the irony is that the heat problem is really an outcome of the failure to rapidly decarbonize.

While it is tempting to respond to heat stress with administrative and management systems approach, with training, hydration and ventilation, for many parts of the world, active cooling is a necessity (even if not needed now, will be required in the next five years). This requires substantial Capex allocation and space in margins to absorb additional opex. This cannot be simply done through debt. There are gaps in technology and knowledge that needs plugging too.

The challenge is stark, and if we don’t win collectively, the industry will face unsurmountable challenges with our workers paying the heaviest price.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the International Apparel Federation.