Investing in cooling for 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 (GLI).

“Everything is constantly changing and costs are rising,” said Jason Judd, executive director of GLI, during an eCornell Keynote presenting the research. “But we know that heat stress levels in general are rising, while factory earnings may be up or down, while the fashion industry as a whole is flat or falling. We calculated two different scenarios – the headwind scenario and the worst-case scenario. Across all these factories and all these variables, the payback period for cooling solutions was one to four years.” 

For the report, “Six Seasons, Four Summers: How to Solve Fashion’s High Heat Problem,” the team of researchers used unique datasets from eight Dhaka-region apparel factories and three dozen workers’ homes to calculate the costs of high heat stress in 2025 and estimate the returns on cooling investments.

Read the full story on the ILR website.
Julie Greco is the communications director for the School of Industrial and Labor Relations.