The Life and Building Safety Initiative (LABS) has launched the ‘Platform for Safety in Apparel and Footwear Industry (PSAFI)’, a collaborative platform aimed at promoting safety and sustainable development in the apparel and footwear industry in India.
PSAFI aims to provide a trusted, neutral space for industry stakeholders to come together, discuss, and exchange ideas and insights on addressing safety issues in the sector.
It seeks to accelerate action on safety and facilitate coordination and alignment across initiatives with a focus on promoting a preventative safety culture and cooperation between governments, employers, workers, and their organizations.
In a keynote address at the launch event, Smt. Prajakta L Verma, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, said, “We are glad that LABS has initiated the Platform for Safety in Apparel and Footwear Industry. The textile industry is one of the largest employers in the country, and it is important to take care of our human resources. There are a lot of challenges around worker safety, especially the safety of women workers, which also presents an opportunity to make improvements. We look forward to PSAFI helping stakeholders in coming together in a collaborative manner and addressing issues together in a steadfast way, for providing a safe and healthy environment to workers in the sector”.
“We are excited to launch PSAFI as a collaborative platform that will bring together key stakeholders to engage on worker safety and contribute towards improved safety in the apparel, textile, and footwear industry in India,” said LABS Spokesperson Pramit Chanda. “For us, some of the key objectives of the Platform include identifying opportunities to scale interventions, improving the management of building safety risks, transparency in reporting, promoting gender empowerment, and driving positive changes in safe working conditions in factories and industrial parks across the country and the manufacturing sector.”
PSAFI was launched in an event on April 28, 2023 in New Delhi, India, with discussions on topics such as “How Various Stakeholders in the Supply Chain Look at Worker Safety” and “What more needs to be done for providing safer Working Conditions”. The event brought together experts, stakeholders, and representatives from the industry, government, and workers’ organizations to chart a path towards a safer and more sustainable future for the apparel and footwear industry in India.
PSAFI invites all interested parties, including industry professionals, policymakers, workers’ representatives, and other stakeholders, to join the platform and contribute to the collective efforts in improving safety in the apparel and footwear industry in India.
About PSAFI
The Platform for Safety in Apparel and Footwear Industry (PSAFI) is a collaborative platform established by the Life and Building Safety Initiative, aimed at promoting Fire, Electrical and Building safety in the apparel and footwear industry in India. PSAFI provides a neutral space for stakeholders to come together, exchange ideas, and drive coordinated actions on safety issues. PSAFI aims to foster a preventative safety culture, enable effective consultation and cooperation among stakeholders, and improve the management of building safety risks in the industry.
About LABS
The Life and Building Safety (LABS) Initiative is an industry-driven program where multiple brands and retailers join forces with the public and CSOs to mitigate preventable fire, electrical, and structural buildings’ safety risks in key apparel and footwear-producing countries.
LABS facilitates the assessment of factories and provides a framework for monitoring, mitigating, and remediating the safety risks identified. Since the program’s launch in 2019, the program made significant progress in reaching out to over 837,000 workers and conducting over 400 assessments in factories. LABS has engaged with the factories to remediate issues that were identified during assessments and achieved a 77% remediation rate.
As a comprehensive, multi-stakeholder effort that brings together brands, industry stakeholders, government agencies, and non-profit organizations, LABS promotes sector-wide transformation of the sector to promote safe practices and create safer work environments. Currently, brands including Gap Inc., Target, VF Corporation, and Walmart are participating in the LABS program.
For more information about the LABS Initiative, please visit https://labsinitiative.com/.