Better mill initiative

The project addresses the environmental impact and ecological consequences that result from the washing, dyeing and finishing of fabrics in wet processing units in Bangladesh, with the health and safety of workers improved from the overall improvement in the mentioned issues. The consortium wants to contribute to improved occupational health and safety in eight factories, focusing on 3,000 workers. Furthermore, the project aims to contribute to improved environmental performance of selected suppliers in Bangladesh by promoting cleaner production practices that will reduce the use of resources such as energy, waste, water and chemicals.

Through this initiative the brands involved have the potential to increase the impact of the activities on the ground in Bangladesh, and share and disseminate resources, tools and learnings together. Moreover, the different product categories of the brands – everyday clothing and textiles, workwear, denim and lingerie – offer the programme to be tested in different value chains and production processes (washing, dying and printing facilities).

The main interventions under Project A are:

1. developing a strong partnership base,
2. improving company knowledge, policies and processes at company level to understand and assess the suppliers,
3. conduct the actual impact (baseline) assessment, benchmarked with existing measuring frameworks (FEM/Higg) and
4. conduct a local stakeholder assessment with clear recommendations which local stakeholders will be involved in Project B (implementation).

The expected interventions under Project B (yet to be specified under project A):

1. suppliers direct support with dedicated experts to implement cleaner production practices and occupational health and safety measures (action plans, tailored support, workshops),
2. network meetings (dissemination of learnings) and
3. the establishment of a local platform of local stakeholders to align and coordinate interventions.