Green transition for whom? Garment production networks and the politics of climate crisis in Bangladesh

Abstract The global apparel industry faces increasing pressure to enact a ‘green transition’ by adopting sustainability standards around carbon emissions, water use, and waste. This article explores how new environmental regulations affect global production networks (GPNs), focusing on Bangladeshi producers exporting to Europe. Using a multi-scalar ethnographic approach, we demonstrate that the apparel industry’s green transition is profoundly shaped by discourses of environmental and climate ‘crisis,’ but that network actors perceive and experience crisis differently. We argue that the politics of crisis, rather than crisis itself, drives the apparel industry’s green transition, replicating power asymmetries within GPNs and broader capitalist geographies.