When it comes to health and safety, does the West know best?

In this episode, Head of Knowledge Exchange at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion Monica Buchan-Ng speaks with PUMA’s Chief Sourcing Officer, Anne-Laure Descours about factory worker’s working conditions in the textile industry. They also discuss what progress has been made since the tragic incident at Rana Plaza ten years ago.

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PUMA has ten target areas, each with a set of goals, that we are striving to reach by 2025. This episode focuses on the target area of Health and Safety.Ensuring safe working conditions for our own employees and hundreds of thousands of indirect employees at our manufacturing partners is an ethical imperative, but also makes good business sense.

What it actually means: A safe workplace is a top priority at PUMA and we continuously carry out building safety inspections among high-risk factories in our supply chain. In 2021 we were able to conduct the structural/fire/electrical safety inspection at three suppliers from Pakistan and India. At the headquarters level, we operate an occupational health and safety committee, which includes a specialised labour physician, a health and safety technician and employee representatives.

Goal 1: Zero fatal accidents (PUMA and suppliers)

In 2022 we recorded two factory employee deaths resulting from work-related accidents in Bangladesh in two different factories. Both factories paid the legal compensation to the worker's family. PUMA collaborated with Better Work Bangladesh for joint monitoring and regular follow up on the actions taken to prevent future occurrence of such accidents. We deeply regret these tragic accidents.

Goal 2: Reduce accident rate to 0.5 (PUMA and suppliers)

As we believe that the health and safety of the people working for PUMA and in PUMA production always come first, we will continue to work with our own entities and suppliers to avoid disease and accidents.

Goal 3: Building safety policy operational in all high-risk countries

From 2015 to the end of 2022, our Building Safety Assessment Program covered Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Pakistan.

PUMA publishes all of its progress, challenges and setbacks in its Sustainability Report. You can find the 2022 report online now by going to about.puma.com