Integration of Occupational Health and Safety Systems with Environmental Sustainability Practices in Bangladesh's Ready-Made Garment Factories: Towards Responsible Manufacturing

Abstract

Currently, Bangladesh's ready-made garment (RMG) factories are implementing occupational health and safety (OHS) and environmental sustainability programmes, but it is not clear if they are integrated or how they link to responsible manufacturing performance. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 60 factories located in five industrial areas (Gazipur, Savar–Ashulia, Narayanganj, Dhaka and Chattogram) in August 2026. It brought together a checklist of 37 verified items for occupational health, floor observations of 32 factories, injury registers and 59 implementation-maturity ratings. With 5000 bootstraps resample, a regression-based path analysis was conducted to test four hypotheses. The OHS System Index (mean 74.9%) closely correlated with the floor observations (r = 0.93), while the managers' self-rated safety maturity was not related to this index (r = 0.05). Nearly everything was in place for physical safety, but fewer factories had management-system elements with 30% being ISO 45001 certified and 40.8% having a dedicated OHS budget. There was no significant association between validated OHS provisions and environmental practices (β = 0.24, p = .091), suggesting parallel instead of integrated systems. They were significantly and negatively correlated with lower recorded injury rates (β = −0.70, p< .001). Environmental practices, primarily waste practices, and chemical and energy practices were found to be independent with respect to fewer injuries (β = −0.25, p = .011). Mediation was not found. Integration is thus a design issue, and is not yet a reality of the sector, for factories, buyers and regulators