Twelve years after Rana Plaza collapse: progress and challenges in human rights due diligence (HRDD) across the garment industry
Today marks twelve years since the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, which claimed the lives of over 1,100 garment workers. The tragedy remains a powerful reminder of the critical need for safety, transparency, and accountability across global supply chains. It exposed profound human rights gaps and catalysed reforms in corporate responsibility. The Bangladesh Accord, a legally binding agreement between brands and trade unions, was a turning point. It introduced independent inspections, remediation efforts, and worker training — contributing to meaningful improvements in occupational health and safety. Yet, twelve years on, the challenges persist.
Ongoing challenges in human rights and environmental supply chain due diligence
Rana Plaza was an extreme case, but it highlighted systemic issues that continue to plague the industry. Low wages, excessive working hours, inadequate safety conditions, and restrictions on unionisation rights remain pervasive, particularly in regions where legal protections are weak and enforcement is limited.
Many brands have made certain progress at the factory level, yet attention is often concentrated on the most visible segments of their supply chains. Meanwhile, there is a concerning lack of oversight in upstream operations, such as textile mills, dye houses, and cotton farms. These industries often operate with minimal monitoring, creating elevated risks of forced labour, environmental degradation, and worker exploitation.
The limits of voluntary initiatives
Over the past two decades, brands have implemented various initiatives to address human rights issues in their supply chains, including e.g. codes of conduct, audits, sustainability reports, and multi-stakeholder collaborations. While these efforts demonstrate growing awareness, they have often failed to deliver substantive change. Despite considerable investment in social compliance and responsible sourcing, core issues like poverty wages and unsafe working conditions remain widespread in the sector.
The core issue is that many of these initiatives remain voluntary, fragmented, and focused on surface-level improvements—rather than addressing the root causes of exploitation. In contrast, the Bangladesh Accord led to tangible progress precisely because it was legally binding.
It made one thing clear: without enforceable agreements that hold companies accountable, meaningful and lasting improvements in supply chains will remain out of reach.
Emerging challenges in a changing industry
The garment industry today is contending with an evolving set of challenges that go beyond the long-standing issues of low wages and unsafe working conditions. A prominent example is the industry’s shift toward circularity and textile recycling. As brands adopt circular business models, new actors — such as recyclers, collectors, and informal intermediaries — are entering the supply chain, bringing with them new risks. Investigations have uncovered informal labour, unsafe working conditions, and limited oversight in recycling operations, giving warning signs that this sector may be replicating the same exploitation found in traditional garment production. This points to a growing dilemma: while the industry’s environmental demands are taking priority, the recycling sector remains poorly integrated into due diligence frameworks and often diverges from the responsible standards that brands claim to uphold.
Beyond the challenges posed by textile recycling, the garment industry is facing additional pressures that exacerbate existing vulnerabilities. Climate change is already disrupting global supply chains through extreme weather events, resource scarcity, and heightened risks to workers. At the same time, geopolitical tensions, inflation, and shifting trade policies are fueling instability and threatening established sourcing relationships. These evolving dynamics—combined with increased scrutiny of indirect suppliers—are pushing current due diligence models to their limits.
As the operating landscape evolves, so too must the industry’s approach to risk and accountability. Addressing these complex challenges will require more than incremental solutions—it calls for a fundamental shift in how companies understand and act on their responsibilities. A critical step is to extend due diligence beyond direct suppliers, reaching into the deeper, often overlooked tiers of the supply chain.
The way forward: making the case for mandatory due diligence and stakeholder engagement
Twelve years after the Rana Plaza tragedy, progress in the sector has not advanced as quickly as many had hoped. For meaningful change to occur, businesses must take the next step by embedding human rights due diligence into their operations — not merely as a compliance exercise, but as a core business imperative that creates value while protecting people and planet.
Voluntary initiatives, while valuable, must be complemented by robust, enforceable frameworks. Mandatory human rights due diligence legislation represents a crucial step toward ensuring companies systematically identify, prevent, and address human rights risks across their entire supply chains, beyond tier-one suppliers.
To be truly effective, such legislation must be designed to enable substantive impact. This means integrating key elements such as strong enforcement mechanisms, transparency requirements, and meaningful stakeholder engagement. In particular, engagement with workers, trade unions, and local communities is vital for understanding ground-level realities and developing interventions that move beyond compliance to drive genuine improvements. Ongoing multi-stakeholder initiatives and industry dialogues have shown that this level of engagement is effective in uncovering previously overlooked risks, strengthening trust, and supporting long-term improvements across supply chains.
Well-designed legislation can serve as a powerful catalyst for change—particularly when informed by the experiences and perspectives of those most affected by business practices across the textile industry. By embedding key principles such as inclusivity and meaningful stakeholder engagement, the garment sector can enhance its due diligence systems and take concrete steps toward building more responsible and resilient supply chains.
If you’re a company operating in the textile industry—whether as a brand or a supplier—get in touch with us for tailored guidance on establishing and managing robust human rights due diligence systems:
Sarah Blank
Senior Consultant