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

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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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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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

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
Read more about Measuring Supply Chain Due Diligence

Latest Research and Events

Business of Fashion Op-Ed: 'Fashion’s Business Model Isn’t Fit for Climate Change'

This op-ed by Jason Judd and Sarosh Kuruvilla explores how the business model of fashion is failing to meet the complex problems posed by climate change.
A man walks through rain and dye outside a dyeing factory in Bangladesh. (Getty)
Business of Fashion Op-Ed: 'Fashion’s Business Model Isn’t Fit for Climate Change'

Many Lessons, Difficult Path to Solutions

A new working paper by the Global Labor Institute delves into the lessons learned by the apparel industry during the COVID-19 pandemic and explores how to better handle future crises.
garment workers in a factory
Many Lessons, Difficult Path to Solutions

Global Apparel Supply Chain Factory Workers Walk When Wage Codes Are Violated

Research from Professor Sarosh Kuruvilla shows that factory workers in the global apparel supply chain are more likely to quit over low wages than other poor working conditions.
Garmet workers sewing in a factory
Global Apparel Supply Chain Factory Workers Walk When Wage Codes Are Violated

Corporate Codes of Conduct and Labour Turnover in Global Apparel Supply Chains

Research on private regulation of labour issues in global supply chains has focused extensively on whether supplier factories comply with the codes of conduct of global companies. Less is known about how such compliance relates to the preferences and behaviours of workers at export factories.
Colored Bolts of Fabric
Corporate Codes of Conduct and Labour Turnover in Global Apparel Supply Chains

Announcing the Global Labor Institute

NCP is now the Global Labor Institute at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
GLI Logo
Announcing the Global Labor Institute

Ship Detained After ILR/ILO Workshop on Labor Abuse Among Fishers

A recent training by the ILO, in collaboration with Cornell’s New Conversations Project, has resulted in the South African government detaining a foreign-flagged fishing vessel suspected of engaging in labor abuses.
Jason Judd (left) on the docks with a member of the South African Maritime Authority
Ship Detained After ILR/ILO Workshop on Labor Abuse Among Fishers

In The News

Media Mentions

How Climate Change Will Shape Fashion Supply Chains in 2026

Vogue
“The technology to cool workers is not complicated, and the costs are manageable in most countries,” said Jason Judd, executive director of ILR’s Global Labor Institute, sharing his expertise about how the garment industry is addressing climate change and heat stress in factories.
How Climate Change Will Shape Fashion Supply Chains in 2026

Justice for Jeyasre: how a brutal murder led to a better deal for garment workers in India

The Guardian
Sarosh Kuruvilla, academic director of the Global Labor Institute, provides an analysis of the Dindigul labor agreement and comments on why Natchi Apparels may be having difficulty finding new clients.
Justice for Jeyasre: how a brutal murder led to a better deal for garment workers in India

Can the fashion industry adapt to a warming world?

Context
“Workers toiling in 35 or 40 degrees Celsius and high humidity is the return of the literal sweatshop,” says this article about the garment industry and climate change, co-written by Jason Judd, executive director of the Global Labor Institute. The article cites the institute’s “Higher Ground?” report and offers solutions.
Can the fashion industry adapt to a warming world?

2030 is Nearly Here. Can Fashion Still Make Good on Its Climate Promises?

Sourcing Journal
“This is not a technical problem but a political one” said Jason Judd, executive director of the Global Labor Institute, about the fashion industry’s progress with adapting to climate change.
2030 is Nearly Here. Can Fashion Still Make Good on Its Climate Promises?

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?