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This paper investigates the set of events that have taken place since the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013, where 1129 garment workers died, to ensure safe working conditions in garment factories. It depicts a current overview of the garment industry, six years later, by focusing on the perspective and actions of the industry’s most important stakeholders: garment factory workers, factory managers, retailers, Bangladesh's government officials, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and consumers. This is done with semi-structured face-to-face and email interviews, and the use of reports published by relevant organizations such as the International Labour Organization. The findings show that even though famous western brands such as Primark, H&M and Zara care deeply about making profits, they also care about their reputation and their product’s quality. Since the Rana Plaza collapse, garment factories have gained leverage on their clients and allowed them to bargain higher prices in exchange of higher product quality and better working conditions inside their factories. However, garment factories have many clients, and each brand imposes its own safety standards and code of conduct, making it impossible to comply with all of them. The Higg Index goal is to harmonise every environmental and social standard in the garment industry allowing the industry to move away from fast-fashion. Brands such as Patagonia and Arket have understood that consumers are concerned about the climate crisis and factory worker’s rights and have turned it into their strength. Today, they are leading the way in the transition to sustainable fashion and are showing to the rest of the industry that profits go together with planet and people. However, in the end, the real player that can bring change to the industry is Bangladesh’s government. As Bangladesh is set to go from a least developed country to a developing country in 2023, better governance will be needed to ensure garment factories remediation, and therefore safer working conditions in the second largest apparel exporter in the world.
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