Improving safety at the source: Fire prevention in Bangladesh

Our commitment to providing a better life for customers and communities around the world extends well beyond our store walls. We are also looking to improve overall health and safety for factory workers: a priority issue affecting our suppliers around the world.

A major focus, initiated in 2010, has been to improve factory conditions in Bangladesh – in an effort to build more positive relationships with suppliers and help their workers lead a better life.

Walmart Canada is very active in Bangladesh with a number of factory suppliers in the region and also by funding HOPE schools for learning. The high frequency of fire safety incidents in the country’s urban garment industry factories has become a serious concern. We are moving aggressively towards applying long-term measures to improve much-needed fire safety preparedness, in partnership with our suppliers, the Bangladesh government and local industry associations.

We started with a fire safety evaluation at each factory in urban areas that produces Walmart merchandise. In addition, we have advised suppliers to phase out factories operating in buildings that are structurally unsafe or at high-risk. The highest risk factories fall into the following categories:

  • residential buildings converted to factories
  • multi-story buildings located in market areas
  • factories in multi-story industrial buildings shared with other factories

Taking steps to ensure worker safety

Factory management has been encouraged to adopt a number of preventative measures to lessen the risks associated with factories in multi-story buildings:

  • factories are now required to conduct regular, combined fire drills with all other businesses sharing the building
  • train workers in fire safety practices and what to do in event of emergency
  • relocate their current facilities to safer approved facilities

We have also collaborated with a number of fellow retailers and brands who source products in Bangladesh to work towards a common solution regarding fire safety in the local garment and textile industry with an emphasis on root cause analysis and prevention. We seek to build an industry-wide approach to manage the situation so that it results in safer working conditions for all our supplier factories in the region.