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Dignity factory workers producing shirts for overseas clients, in Accra, Ghana

Six Seasons, Four Summers: How to Solve Fashion's High Heat Problem

Read The Report

Cooling investments in Bangladesh’s apparel factories can be commercially viable, with an average payback period of one to four years, according to new research from Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute.

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The Dindigul Agreement to End Gender-based Violence and Harassment

Has It Worked?

This is GLI’s official final assessment of the Dindigul Agreement to End Gender-Based Violence and Harassment at a South Indian apparel factory that could be a model for other factories around the world. 

Large room of garment factory workers
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Measuring Supply Chain Due Diligence

Labor Outcomes Metrics

Read about the Global Labor Institute's new quantitative metrics that measure labor outcomes—actual impacts for workers.

Workers in Bangladesh
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Cooling Before It Got Cool: Case Studies in Heat Adaptation in Southeast Asian Factories

Heat Adaptation in Apparel Factories

A new examination of how apparel factories are adapting to extreme heat while investing in cooling, automation, and climate resilience strategies.

A thermal image of a worker at a station in a garment factory, showing the high heat levels through brighter orange colors at their workstation.
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Global Labor Institute's Climate-Labor Work

GLI Climate-Labor Research

See all of our analyses on the intersection of labor rights and climate change.

GLI climate workers webinar
Read GLI's Climate-Labor Work

Latest Research and Events

Book "Private Regulation and Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains" Published

NCP Executive Director Sarosh Kuruvilla's book examines the practice of private regulation in respect of labor standards in global supply chains.
Sarosh Kuruvilla Book Cover
Book "Private Regulation and Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains" Published

New Conversations Project Partners with ILO on Grant

Improving working conditions in the dangerous and largely unregulated commercial fishing industry is the focus of the project.
An industrial fishing boat
New Conversations Project Partners with ILO on Grant

Private Regulation of Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains

This paper, published as a chapter in the International Labor Organization's 2021 volume: Decent Work in a Globalized Economy, shares Professor Sarosh Kuruvilla and the New Conversations Project's new research on the limited progress of private regulation over a decade in multiple countries
Garment workers in an Indonesian factory
Private Regulation of Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains

“Repeat, Regain or Renegotiate?” NCP Working Paper No. 2 asks What's the future of apparel?

Cornell NCP's Jason Judd and Lowell Jackson plot the decades-long, pre-pandemic trajectories of apparel industry consolidation, automation, e-commerce, sourcing patterns, and governance of labor practices against three possible scenarios for the industry in the post-pandemic era. This paper also appears as an ILO Better Work Discussion Paper.
Ho Chi Minh map
“Repeat, Regain or Renegotiate?” NCP Working Paper No. 2 asks What's the future of apparel?

Is private regulation working? Book launch with Sourcing Journal on May 25

New Conversations Project and the Sourcing Journal presents a live book launch and debate on Sarosh Kuruvilla's new book, Private Regulation of Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains on Tuesday, May 25.
Sarosh Kuruvilla Book Cover
Is private regulation working? Book launch with Sourcing Journal on May 25

GLI Sourcing Journal Series

The New Conversations Project is publishing a limited series in the Sourcing Journal on latest research findings related to private regulation. These pieces are designed to de-code important new academic research for actors in the global supply chain.
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GLI Sourcing Journal Series

In The News

Media Mentions

The COP30 Deal Won’t Solve Fashion’s Climate Problems

The Business of Fashion News
Jason Judd, executive director of the Global Labor Institute, recommends that the fashion industry should “get their act together” with regard to heat and climate change, “because workers are suffering from heat stress and, in turn, so are margins.”
The COP30 Deal Won’t Solve Fashion’s Climate Problems

Do the Labor Provisions in Trump’s Southeast Asian Trade Deals Have a Point?

Sourcing Journal
Kelly Fay Rodriguez, visiting lecturer at ILR’s Global Labor Institute and former special representative for international affairs at the Department of State, analyzes the importance of labor provisions in trade agreements and discusses how these provisions can best be enforced.
Do the Labor Provisions in Trump’s Southeast Asian Trade Deals Have a Point?

Resilient Threads: Weaving A Climate-Ready, Regenerative Future for Cotton in India

Observer Research Foundation
A study by ILR’s Global Labor Institute is cited in a discussion about climate change causing problems for the cotton supply chain used by Asia’s fashion sector.
Resilient Threads: Weaving A Climate-Ready, Regenerative Future for Cotton in India

Jason Judd wants the apparel industry to take heat stress very seriously

Big Closets Small Planet Podcast
The garment industry can mitigate health problems and production slowdowns caused by heat stress, but will it? In this podcast episode, Jason Judd, executive director of the ILR Global Labor Institute, shares a nuanced look at climate change adaptation in the garment industry.
Jason Judd wants the apparel industry to take heat stress very seriously

Commentary: How Chinese imports are skirting Trump’s tariffs

Yahoo News
Jason Judd, executive director of the Global Labor Institute, explains that Chinese companies are avoiding Trump tariffs because they are increasingly building their own production facilities outside of China.
Commentary: How Chinese imports are skirting Trump’s tariffs

This week in Trumponomics: The looming import shortage

Yahoo News
Once current inventories are gone, the rest of 2025 could be rocky. “Our perspective in terms of how this will affect manufacturers and workers is that we’ll see a replay of the initial COVID shock,” said Jason Judd, executive director of the Global Labor Institute.
This week in Trumponomics: The looming import shortage