Will there be a just transition? Listen to Jason Judd, Executive Director of Cornell's Global Labor Institute.
How far does the climate crisis affect workers and businesses and what needs to be done about it?
Today in Frankly Speaking, Richard Howitt welcomes Jason Judd, executive director of Cornell's Global Labor Institute.
They recently produced a set of 25 social indicators which it believes are measurable and impactful, and which can give certainty to social issues and corporate sustainability reporting. The Institute has also produced research on the impact of extreme weather events on the apparel or fashion industry to understand the real scale of change which is confronting us.
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"A very practical example of adaptation is that a lot of apparel factories in Bangladesh do not have effective cooling systems. So in the hottest months and on the highest floors of old school garment factories, we reach Intolerable levels: 38, 40, 42 degrees Celsius. In factories where they are dying fabric or washing, those processes are generating lots of heat of their own. I spoke with a brand recently who told me that in a factory in India, the numbers were between 40 and 50 degrees Celsius. Those are near fatal numbers. That's hard to work in."
There's very little pressure being applied to companies by investors looking at how they're actually behaving and treating human rights as a core business priority. This needs to change.
Investors shouldn't just take companies' word for what they're doing; they should investigate what the companies are actually doing regarding human rights.
Germany's NewClimate Institute has produced the Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor report, evaluating the transparency and integrity of climate pledges of 51 major companies across different sectors and geographies.
