Triple Helix approach can help the garment sector in Bangladesh
In today's Bangladesh, most garment export factories in are considered safe to enter. Pioneering industry owners have built or transformed a good number of companies into green factories. However, a number of problems remain. To address these complex and interrelated issues, a growing number of stakeholders in Bangladesh are turning to the Triple Helix approach
Bangladesh is still struggling with a negative image in the western media associated with poor working conditions and environmental degradation in its export garment industry. For some years now, the country is working to reinvent itself as a sustainable sourcing hub, with Bangladeshi suppliers increasingly striving to be seen as responsible actors who care about workers’ safety and the environment. Also, influential industrialists are recognising that fast fashion is a thing of the past and that the future lies in slow fashion.
However, workers in the garment industry are still exposed to chemicals, arsenic continues to pollute the water, and the leather industry carries on discharging untreated polluted water directly into neighbouring rivers. Additionally, circular economy principles are virtually non-existent in the country.
To address these complex and interrelated issues, a growing number of stakeholders in Bangladesh are turning to the Triple Helix approach.
This model focuses on fostering constructive and forward-looking collaboration between government, industry and academia, with the goal of finding innovative solutions to highly complex challenges such as the above-mentioned, also commonly known as “wicked problems”.
Read more about this work in the article written by Jan Vang, professor and Head of SDU Global Sustainable Production:
COLLABORATION IS KEY: HOW THE TRIPLE HELIX APPROACH CAN HELP THE GARMENT SECTOR IN BANGLADESH