Pakistan is among the most important producers of clothes and textiles sold in Germany. This economic connection also implies responsibility: If Germany wants its import partners to adhere to high environmental and social standards, it has to act toward this goal.
This is why over the past years, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) has been working with its partners in Pakistan in addressing social and environmental sustainability issues in the country's textile and garment sector. The GIZ textile cluster programme has been working with textile factories to establish the “Dialogue for Sustainability” as a systemic approach for enhancing the performance on occupational safety & health and labour standards and wastewater management. With a new component for environment and resource management, the Labour Standards Project (LSP) of GIZ has expanded its efforts with textile and garment industries on implementing the same approach in addressing aspects of environmental management, energy and water efficiency, wastewater and chemicals management. The initiative emphasises the strengthening of communication and cooperation between the actors, both within and between the factories and across the national level. The actors involved are encouraged to utilise new sources of information and forms of dialogue and cooperation, thereby contributing to achieving greater compliance with labour as well as environmental standards in the target sector.
adelphi, together with its Pakistani partner Espire Consult, supported the GIZ programme in Lahore in the engagement process with selected textile factories on environmental topics. In view of the existing restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic, adelphi also guided the GIZ and its local partners in adapting the Dialogue for Sustainability approach using internet-based dialogue formats. As part of the support, the expert team also compiled recommendation for the further adaptation and up-scaling of the approach for environmental topics.
