Garment industry has been occupying as the largest source of exports and foreign currency as well as the second largest contributor to GDP in Bangladesh for more than a decade. Millions of poor women and men are employed in this industry. The export oriented RMG sector has some distinctive features, which differentiate it from other businesses. Whatever the wage level or lead time, without proper supply chain management no business is viable especially when RMG sector is counted as a suitable one. As supply chain networks keep on expanding in RMG industry around the country, it has created significant effects on the environment. As a measure, Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) has become an important standpoint in RMG firms in recent times.
Several GSCM drivers and factors simultaneously work behind greening the RMG sector with pressures for sustainability from every end whether it is internal or external to the organization. Consequentially, different scholars and industrialists suggested GSCM practices, and taxonomies to those practices detailing the RMG product, transportation and distribution, warehousing, reverse logistics, design, and operation. Three main components are essential to any kind of sustainability: economic, social and environmental; also to RMG industry.
RMG’s supply chain sustainability reveals the demanding part of society who pursues greenness around the whole industry processing, and execution process. Starting from investors, to the buyers/users and other stakeholders demand the GSCM. And, with successful implementation, the benefits pay off through environmental performance and competitive advantage. But the implementation process includes many hurdles to overcome through some core GSCM contents based on assets, flows, performance, cooperation, and evaluation. Transparency, harmony, dynamism, integration, codes of conduct, and the like are the prerequisites. Reduce, reuse, recycle, and rethink – the 4R approach works also as a vital sanction along with other typical measures. Surely, RMG industry of Bangladesh is competing on global scale for GSCM and prospering to a state of brighter future along with top earning sector of the country.