For at least 13 straight months, the world has sweltered under near-record-breaking heat.
The consequences have been deadly and chaotic, with soaring temperatures not only disrupting daily life and harming health, but also fuelling a range of other destructive weather extremes from hurricanes to fires, droughts and floods.
Even as many in the fashion industry wind down for a summer break, broiling weather has scorched popular holiday destinations.
But while complaints about the sweltering conditions are now a mainstay of conference call small talk, the real impact and financial cost of rising temperatures on shopping habits, supply chains and workers’ health is something much of the industry has yet to grapple with.
Why has this year been so hot?
In a nutshell: climate change.
Scientists have been warning for decades that humans’ use of fossil fuels is raising global temperatures. The planet-warming carbon emissions given off when coal, natural gas or oil are burned trap heat in the atmosphere, making heatwaves more frequent, more intense and longer lasting around the world.
At the start of this year, that human-caused climate change was compounded by the El Nino effect, a natural weather phenomenon that warms the surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean and tends to raise global average temperatures. But the world moved out of that climate pattern in April and temperatures have still climbed.
What is the impact of extreme heat?
The higher temperatures have already had deadly and costly consequences.
Scorching conditions this year killed over 1,000 during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, closed schools for some 80 million children across Asia and Africa and placed 120 million people under heat advisory warnings in the US. Hot weather contributed to natural catastrophes that caused $120 billion in losses in the first half of the year, according to insurer Munich Re.
In fashion, the weather gyrations have implications for shopping habits, making it harder for brands to manage inventory and predict merchandising mix. They threaten supply of raw materials like cotton, with major growing regions buffeted by floods and droughts in recent years. And they hamper manufacturing productivity and harm worker health.
Unless the industry takes steps to protect against such extremes, soaring heat and flooding in just a handful of key manufacturing countries could reduce garment sector export earnings by $65 billion by 2030, prevent the creation of one million jobs and significantly hit operating profits at exposed brands, according to a study by Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute and investment firm Schroders published last year.
Why isn’t fashion talking about this more?
Amid a flurry of earnings calls over the last month, the weather barely made the agenda. Instead, executives focused on sluggish consumer confidence, geopolitical gyrations and laying out their plans to navigate an uncertain second half of the year.
That’s not entirely surprising. Unlike fires, hurricanes and floods, heat is a largely invisible menace. Feeling hot is a routine human experience and symptoms of heat stress often go unnoticed until it’s too late. Meanwhile, companies aren’t systematically gathering data on how rising temperatures are affecting their workforce or their business, making it hard for executives and investors to interpret how to think about its impact.
The result is that even as headlines blare alarms about heat extremes, their fallout for the industry is slipping under the radar.
What should the industry do about it?
Future proofing the industry requires a combination of preventative action and adaptation.
While a growing number of fashion players have made commitments to curb their planet-warming emissions, the industry’s carbon footprint is still rising and climate efforts are under pressure from current market volatility. Companies shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that climate change is a real and present financial threat, which means taking steps to tackle it makes business sense.
That will mean costly investments to boost climate resilience across the supply chain and retrofit factories with cooling systems — a move that also comes with climate trade-offs because more air conditioning also means more emissions. Smart and flexible supply chains and inventory management will help brands navigate weather-related disruptions and volatile consumer demand, and there are potential market opportunities for sun-protective clothing and skincare.
There are also relatively simple steps that can make an immediate difference. These include providing workers adequate time for breaks, access to water and a cooled area to take them in.
Increasingly, governments around the world are stepping in to set clearer standards governing working conditions when the mercury rises. The industry should endorse such measures and push for more policies that support both decarbonisation and adaptation.
Last month, the UN issued its first call for action on extreme heat, illustrating the growing urgency of the issue. It launched alongside a new report from the International Labour Organisation that found more than 70 percent of the global workforce is now at risk from extreme heat.
“The heat is on,” said UN secretary general Antonio Guterres. “The world must rise to the challenge of rising temperatures.”
