Swiss clothing retailers have been urged to sign up with Bangladesh’s Accord. Five years after the Rana Plaza factory collapse that killed 1,138 textile workers in Bangladesh, 145 international brands signed up with Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. Only one of them is Swiss and that is the teen clothier Tally Weij, which joined Accord in 2014.

Bangladesh is the fourth leading source of clothing imported into Switzerland. Swiss retailer Coop sells various brands of clothing and soft furnishings. It says its few own-label textiles come from a handful of carefully selected suppliers in Bangladesh and that it has always taken responsibility for implementing sustainability standards directly.

Similarly, Swiss outdoor label Mammut says it’s systematically committed to the comprehensive improvement of working conditions and occupational safety. Mammut says it has built up a substantial control and management system over the past ten years. Neither Coop nor Mammut is a part of Accord.

Accord is the world’s first legally binding measure to improve workplace safety for garment workers. Under Accord, inspection teams have screened over 1,600 factories and identified more than 1,18,500 dangers related to fire safety, electrical installations and structural issues. Some 83 per cent of these problems have been resolved.