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Jasmin Malik Chua

@jasminmalikchua

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Climate and labor editor @sourcingjournal
Signal: jchua.99
http://www.jasminchua.com

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Stuff I wrote for @sourcingjournal this week. Off to @textileexchange in Vancouver next! Say hi if you'll be there!

1. If there was one question that reverberated again and again—and again—across fashion discussions throughout New York Climate Week in late September, it was: “Is there a business case for this?” “This” meaning sustainability, of course.

2. The fashion industry’s approach to microfiber pollution has long suffered from a familiar affliction: endless research, disjointed standards, rehashed debates that yield little on-the-ground change and more than a little consumer blame for how garments are laundered and maintained. On Tuesday, a coalition of activewear and outdoor heavyweights announced a plan to change that.

3. Daniel Murphy was investigating forced labor in Chinese seafood processing plants in 2023 when he hit upon what he described as a “very potent” methodology for flagging potential labor transfers from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

4. Cotton traceability takes more than high-tech solutions. It also requires something far simpler: talking to the people who grow it. That’s the case longtime denim professionals Ani Wells and Anne Oudard make in “Step 4,” the latest installment of their five-year #WhoMadeMyCotton investigation into where the cotton in jeans—among the world’s most widely worn garments—comes from.

5. Khun Tharo, a Cambodian labor rights advocate and program manager at the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights, is disappointed, if not surprised, that Cambodia’s minimum wage for workers in the garment, textile, footwear and travel goods sector will barely budge in 2027.

6. Beleaguered Bangladeshi conglomerate Beximco Group is seeking government approval for a new leasing model to partially reopen its shuttered apparel and textile factories with investment from British firm Charter HCP and Chinese company Besting, according to officials. by @jasminmalikchua

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Stories I wrote for @sourcingjournal this week, including coverage of our fall Sourcing Summit:

1. Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation this week that would tie duty-free access under the African Growth and Opportunity Act to environmental enforcement, targeting a long-standing loophole in the landmark trade preferences program that critics say gives foreign polluters a competitive edge over American manufacturers.

2. The problem with shoes, Deanna Bratter, chief sustainability officer at @crocs, said at PlanetHaus during New York Climate Week last week, is manifold. More than 23 billion pairs of footwear are produced every year, with roughly a billion winding up in landfills. At the same time, she said, some half a billion people don’t have the shoes they need to go to work or school or “live life.”

3. Did you know there was a trade classification for magic tricks? Neither did Josh Teitelbaum, senior counsel at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, until he reviewed the U.S. list of so-called non-sensitive Chinese goods that could be spared from forthcoming tariffs following last week’s Washington summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Other notable items on that list: Fireworks, billiard balls, Christmas ornaments and fishing lines.

4. There’s a good reason January is sometimes called “Returnuary.” December’s peak shopping days are quickly followed by the busiest month for returns, when shoppers send back the sweater from a sister-in-law they would never wear or the shoes they impulsively snapped up during a holiday sale and now regret. The National Retail Federation estimates that roughly 17 percent of holiday purchases are typically returned, amounting to billions of dollars in merchandise. by @jasminmalikchua

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How long have I been working at @sourcingjournal is a question I get asked a lot. Well, long enough that I now need my reading glasses to be able to decipher my cue cards!

Thanks to everyone who made it out to our annual Sourcing Summit, but most of all to my panelists: Alia Malik of @bettercottonorg who took us through the organization's first impact report in five years; Naurin Muzaffar of Innovatus and @crescentbahuman and Vidhura Ralapanawe of @epicgroupglobal for speaking honestly about how the decarbonization burden falls unfairly on suppliers' shoulders; Elizabeth Richman of @eileenfisherny, Leah Hollinder of @fjallravenofficial and the peerless @danadition for tackling the question of whether sustainability can survive capitalism; and Marissa Brock of @sourcemap, Shawn MacDonald of Verité and @kfayrodriguez of the Competence Centre for Human Rights Due Diligence for walking us through what human rights due diligence looks like in 2026 and beyond.

And if you didn't manage to grab a print copy of our latest sourcing report, which has a story from yours truly about the new regulatory landscape, you can download it at: https://subscribe.wwd.com/sj-report-2026 taken in 583 PARK AVENUE by @jasminmalikchua

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A roundup of stories from the past two weeks, which mostly revolved around the @cascale_org annual meeting in Athens and New York Climate Week. Next Tuesday is our big @sourcingjournal Sourcing Summit, so say hello to the person maxing out the limits of her under-eye concealer if you'll be there!

1. Cascale opened its annual meeting with a pointed set of questions: Who pays, who profits and what changes? When Ying McGuire joined the convening organization formerly known as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition as CEO in June, she, too, had questions.

2. At the Cascale annual meeting, Asif Khan of Mondetta acknowledged the central conflict undercutting fashion’s green ambitions: while sustainability demands a long-term sourcing strategy, brands rely entirely on the ability to pivot at a moment’s notice.

3. When @apparelandfootwear launched its heat-stress toolkit at Cascale’s annual meeting, it marked the industry’s most significant effort yet to confront the escalating threat that rising global temperatures pose to garment workers. It also served as a tacit admission from supply-chain leaders that whatever playbook they have relied on to confront climate change’s social impacts can no longer withstand the record heat upending conditions on the production floor.

4. The Climate Pledge, Amazon, Stella McCartney and Canopy unveiled Wednesday The Climate Pledge Fashion Coalition, a new bloc of more than 60 signatories across the apparel and footwear supply chain working to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040.

5. The cost of cooling Bangladesh’s overheating garment factories—and, by extension, their workers—isn’t as exorbitant as it might seem, a new report has found. Engineering studies commissioned by @cornellilr's Global Labor Institute determined that passive and active cooling measures carried manageable costs for most of the factories they examined, with average payback periods of one to four years through recovered worker productivity and reduced downtime. by @jasminmalikchua

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Paying homage to this real unit. taken in Athens, Greece by @jasminmalikchua

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Stories I wrote this week for @sourcingjournal. I'm off to Athens for @cascale_org's annual meeting, so hit me up if you'll be there, too!

1. A sweeping ban on imports of goods made wholly or in part with forced labor has gone into effect in Vietnam, marking a major regulatory shift amid intensifying pressure from the United States over unfair trade practices.

2. Former Amazon employees filed a class-action lawsuit Tuesday accusing the e-tail leviathan of discriminating against potentially thousands of pregnant workers by firing or retaliating against those who sought extra accommodations.

3. New European Union procurement rules that could reshape public spending are failing to mandate strong human rights and environmental safeguards to prevent unscrupulous companies from winning contracts by underbidding on price, a Swedish watchdog has warned.

4. From my recent trip to the U.K.: The same forces that began hollowing out Britain’s traditional textile hubs half a century ago—namely, higher labor and production costs that made overseas manufacturing more attractive—are now more pronounced than ever, pushing the industry to near-total collapse. Where thousands of factories and mills once thrived, fewer than 400 now employ 10 people or more.

5. A record 300 global brands and retailers have signed the International Accord for Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry, the 2021 successor to the Accord for Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh that expanded its focus from fire and building risks to broader workplace safety. by @jasminmalikchua

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Pre-birthday hang with medieval beasties. taken in The Met Cloisters by @jasminmalikchua

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I took a samfu sewing class with my dear friend @juanitatortilla (friendship 40 years strong and going!) while visiting my folks in Singapore and it struck me that I could not see the sewing machine foot with my regular glasses.

Luckily, I brought my computer glasses, but even then, doing the hand-sewing of the buttons was next to impossible because everything was a blur.

All of which is to say that I can now personally appreciate the story I wrote about nonprofits like VisionSpring bringing eye-screening programs to garment factories in the global South, like Bangladesh.

Imagine sewing is your livelihood and suddenly you can't see because of age-related presbyopia. It's why so many garment workers drop out of the industry at age 40. It must be terrifying.

Such a simple thing—proper eyeglasses!—with such a massive impact.

I joked that I would be fired on my first day at the factory because I kept making mistakes, but it also completely underscores how much skill this work requires. More people should know how to sew...and knit. I think it would change attitudes about pricing and consumption tremendously.

Link to the story in bio. taken in Singapore by @jasminmalikchua

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Here's what I wrote this week @sourcingjournal (did some logistics subbing, too):

1. Both the Chinese government and a prominent industry association lashed out at the Trump administration on Saturday over an expanded import blacklist targeting companies tied to the persecution of Muslim minorities in China’s Xinjiang region, calling it a “classic act of economic coercion.”

2. While goods from Lesotho have started entering the United States duty-free following the expiration of President Donald Trump’s temporary 10 percent global tariff regime, widely seen as a stopgap after the Supreme Court struck down the “Liberation Day” tariffs in February, Lesotho’s former “reciprocal” 50 percent rate may have already taken a toll.

3. Bangladesh and South Korea agreed in principle Tuesday to a comprehensive economic agreement aimed at boosting bilateral trade as they work through remaining technical issues.

4. A Turkish garment workers’ union is accusing H&M Group and Zara owner Inditex of failing to act on what it says is a clear case of union-busting by one of their suppliers—one that could undermine the retail giants’ code-of-conduct commitments to freedom of association and collective bargaining.

5. Russian ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv Wednesday night destroyed logistics facilities belonging to sportswear company Puma and Intertop, a prominent retailer that sells clothing and shoes from brands including Armani Exchange, Skechers, Timberland and The North Face, in the neighboring village of Chaika.

6. New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport is suing Amazon over what she described as the e-commerce Goliath’s use of its market power to suppress driver wages, undermine workers’ efforts to unionize and curb competition among its delivery service partners through “no-poach” agreements.

7. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, the country’s apex garment trade group, said the gas supply crisis has reduced the garment industry’s production capacity by 30-40 percent. But it dismissed reports that several factories, including DBL Group’s, had shut down because of gas and power shortages, calling them “completely false and baseless.” by @jasminmalikchua

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Roundup of this week's stories from @sourcingjournal:

1. In the boisterous Ghanaian capital of Accra, where 15 million garments from the global North pour every week into the sprawling secondhand clothing marketplace known as Kantamanto, upcycling the absurd bounty of “dead white men’s clothes” has become an act of resistance in more ways than one.

2. Vietnam plans to raise its minimum wage by 7.8 percent across the country’s four regions in 2027, pending final prime ministerial sign-off.

3. A new report begins with a simple premise: What if brands stopped asking whether Bangladesh was cheap enough and instead focused on suppliers that could help them improve compliance readiness, shorten lead times, tighten quality control or scale circular innovation?

4. At Sourcing Journal’s Visions of Tomorrow event on Monday, Beth Esponnette, cofounder and chief product officer at Unspun, said working in the fashion industry feels like that cartoon of two cavemen struggling to haul a rock-filled cart with square wheels.

5. When Exiger launched a free, open-source AI platform for detecting forced labor in global supply chains in January, Section 301 tariffs targeting countries that inadequately enforce forced-labor import prohibitions were still little more than a glint in someone’s eye. No longer.

6. A randomized controlled trial at Shahi Exports, India’s largest manufacturer, and published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, found that correcting garment workers’ near vision with glasses delivered a 337 percent return on investment over the three-month trial period.

7. The Department of Homeland Security announced Friday the addition of 43 entries to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List—a 30 percent increase.

8. Without adaptation, rising temperatures could shrink South Asia’s gross domestic product by 7 percent by 2050, amounting to the steepest loss among developing regions, according to a new World Bank report published Wednesday. by @jasminmalikchua

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I don't know how we get half of the things that we do done, but somehow we pull through. Go, team @sourcingjournal! taken in Second Floor by @jasminmalikchua

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