The belief that socially responsible low-cost country apparel production can be realized on a broad scale is almost dead. Even big firms struggle to ensure that manufacturing in China and Bangladesh meets minimal social standards and might very well end up back where they came from: home.

Bangladesh is the newest frontier in apparel manufacturing. Even cheaper than China, even less restrictions on work conditions. Pretty much every large label produces there by now. One of the world’s poorest countries has become a major textile manufacturing destination. Just check your clothing’s labels, you may be surprised where it’s from. And it doesn’t matter if you wear inexpensive apparel or high-end fashion. All the major players are there, driven by the permanent search for ever lower unit costs. Never at the expense of labor standards, though. That’s what they claim.

Here are the facts: Nearly 500 garment workers have been burned to death in factory fires in Bangladesh in the last five years. They weren’t just working for unknown exploitive discounters but for major Western corporations as well. One that looks up those accused of some kind of involvement will come across many of the big names. Public uproar however has been limited thus far.

The trend we’ve seen over the last years was to increasingly buy ‘organic,’ which very often is associated with socially responsible. But while eco-friendly production standards certainly make a difference, sustainability is a broader concept. You can very well have workers sew clothing in sweatshop conditions while using organic cotton. This certainly isn’t what’s happening everywhere, but we hear of more and more stories where this is the case.