Apparel and Footwear Brands Join LABS Initiative

- Major Brands like Bestseller, Gap Inc., PVH, Target, VF Corp., and Walmart participate in the LABS Initiative

NEW DELHI, Sept. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative has recently launched its Life And Building Safety (LABS) Initiative for the apparel and footwear sectors in India. It is designed to protect workers from structural, fire, and electrical safety risks in apparel and footwear producing factories. The program will operate in all key industrial hubs in each country, covering both small, medium, and large enterprises. Major brands including Bestseller, Gap Inc., PVH, Target, VF Corporation, and Walmart cover hundreds of factories and 125,000 workers in India under this initiative, and assessments will be carried out pan India in Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi, Chennai among other states. The Initiative was also launched in Vietnam earlier in August 2019 where about 163,400 workers will benefit from it. IDH will support the overall facilitation of LABS and development of operational set up in the two countries.

Mr. D. K. Shami, Fire Advisor, Director General Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards, Ministry of Home Affairs said at the launch, "Due to tragic incidents in the apparel industry, the industry has got a lot of attention in the recent years at a global level. The factories in India also work in similar conditions and there are several incidents reported each year from these. This reinforces the need to have these standards and their enforcement in place. The government of India is ready to adopt innovative, cost effective models. If there is a requirement to improve, we will adapt at the national level. We look forward to receiving recommendations and taking learnings from the LABS Initiative for improving the national standards on safety in the sector."

With a pressing need to protect workers from structural, fire and electrical safety risks, several leading apparel brands approached IDH to leverage learnings from Bangladesh and replicate them in other key apparel sourcing countries, leading to the development of the LABS Initiative. The LABS participants include a group of European, Asian and US-based businesses, facilitated by the LABS Secretariat, which engages with local stakeholders such as industry associations, CSOs, governments, and institutes to create better safety policies and provisions. The LABS standard and methodology are based on international best practices and codes, such as the International Building Code, National Building Code of India among others. Under LABS, in addition to applicable country laws, factories commit to adhering to a harmonized, country level standard around structural, fire, and electrical safety.

Pramit Chanda, Global Director for Sustainable Manufacturing - IDH and LABS Spokesperson said, "The tragic events at apparel factories in the last few years have brought to fore the pressing need to address life and building safety in the industry. Learning from such events, the Life and Building Safety (LABS) Initiative was established. Aimed at improving worker safety in the apparel and footwear industries, LABS effectively identifies and mitigates the potential risks related to fire, electrical, and structural building safety and evacuation. LABS is a coherent and consistent worker-safety program to assess factories and provide a framework for monitoring, mitigation and remediation."

LABS is aimed at setting a benchmark safety standard against which apparel, and footwear factories are assessed. The LABS assessment is not a code-compliance check; however, it defines a required level of safety based on international best practices, considering the local context. All technical standards consist of an interrelated set of measures which, taken together, are assumed to provide an acceptable level of safety in a building.

Speaking about joining the Initiative, Kyle Bogler, Worker Rights and Safety Director - VF Corp. said, "Every decision we make at VF Corp. revolves around our purpose statement - 'We power movements of sustainable and active lifestyles for the betterment of people and our planet' - a key word in that is people. When you put people first, you can understand why VF is a founding member of the LABS Initiative. LABS has developed a set of harmonized standards, which are locally relevant, that focus on the top three preventable safety risks people face in a factory. Through multi-stakeholder collaboration, we have everyone moving in the same direction, with the ultimate goal of driving change and saving lives. Another key facet of the LABS Initiative is the bottom up approach to training and the worker helpline. This gives a sometimes-underrepresented group of people the chance to understand their role in preventing deadly accidents."

About LABS

The Life and Building Safety (LABS) Initiative is an industry-driven program, in which multiple brands and retailers are joining forces together with public and civil society organizations, to mitigate preventable fire, electrical and structural buildings safety risks in key apparel and footwear producing countries.

Visit: https://labsinitiative.com/

Media Contact:
Mrinalini Prasad, Communication Officer, IDH
[email protected]  

Arvind Kumar, Senior Manager, Edelman India
[email protected]