The devastating collapse of the Rana Plaza textile factory in Bangladesh (2013) which killed 1,136 people and injuring more than 2,500 others, awoke the world to the poor labour conditions faced by workers within the garment sector. Amongst this, as reported by the ILO, ‘most of the factories do not meet standards required by building and construction legislation and as a result, deaths from fire incidents and building collapses are frequent’. 

However, as the textile and garment industry employ over four million people in Bangladesh alone, the challenge faced by ARUP was to balance the immediacy required to prevent another disaster form occurring, without ‘shutting down an entire industry which is critical to the national economy’.  

The structural safety assessments are directly leading to safer workplaces for those employed in garment factories, ensuring that people feel safer going to work every day.

The rapid structural assessment methodology designed by ARUP ensured buildings were surveyed and categorised according to risk, and recommendations were made as to what actions were required. ARUP developed a roadmap for building regulation authorities to take on the remediation tasks moving forward. 

Over 130 Arup staff have been to Bangladesh during this project, with contributions from 30 offices worldwide.

To date, ARUP’s methodology designed to test structural safety of textile factory buildings has been used to test 3,700 factories in Bangladesh. One percent have been closed due to structural safety concerns and nearly fifty percent of the total number of buildings inspected required immediate actions to ensure they could remain open. 

Their methodology has now been adopted nationally and subsequently, has been considered for adoption in other garment/textile producing countries. 

It is written that the reports produced conveyed complex issues in a manner that could be understood by management, union representatives and workers, setting the standard in the industry with simple text and graphics to convey the problems and recommended actions. 

The Rana Plaza disaster ignited the desperately needed conversations surrounding the poor working conditions and lack of serious safety concern over workers within the garment/textile industry. The high percentage of buildings inspected by ARUP which required immediate action to ensure their structural safety, clearly demonstrates the lack of concern over the safety of those who work within the buildings and the required change that was and still is needed. 

Circularity within the industry simply cannot be achieved without the working environments and livelihoods of those employed within the textile and garment sectors reaching equal, fair and safe standards of both living and working conditions. All employees have the right to feel safe in their work environments.