Greener Clothes? Environmental Initiatives and Tools in the Garment Sector in Asia

As one of the most globalized supply chains, the textile and garment sector is facing challenges in ensuring social and environmental sustainability. In response to these challenges and in recognition of the complex and multi-faceted drivers of and solutions to these issues, many multi-stakeholder initiatives, tools and assessment platforms have been developed and implemented throughout the supply chain. There is a great deal of diversity in these initiatives, including differences in their focus, the actors involved, who the beneficiaries are, the longevity of the activities and how they define and measure success. For many stakeholders the number and diversity of initiatives is confusing. This report aims to map those initiatives that specifically incorporate environmental sustainability and analyse their coverage across the sector. The first part of the report analyses an illustrative group of these initiatives in terms geographic and sectoral coverage, target participants, operating model, method of intervention, scale, success and replicability, with the aim of identifying where and how these initiatives can and are enhancing environmental sustainability in the garment sector, and to identify if and where any gaps exist in initiatives offerings. The second part investigates the coverage and reach of environmental initiatives to micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the sector. This report has been produced under the Decent Work in the Garment Sector Supply Chains in Asia project, funded by the Government of Sweden