In the wake of a fire that killed at least 28 people in a shoe factory in China, the spotlight is once again on the deadly failures of commercial social auditing. And it is not the first time that amfori BSCI (Business Social Compliance Initiative), a widely used standard claiming to ensure safe and ethical factories, is linked to the deaths of workers. 

On July 9, 2026, a fire tore through the Huiteng Shoes factory in Jinjiang, a city in the southeast of China. News accounts of the tragedy are shocking. Footage from China Central Television (CCTV) shows firefighters dousing a large multi-story building with water. Smoke billows from broken windows and flames flicker across the lower floors. In social media videos, people can be seen taking refuge on the roof and near windows as water from fire hoses fails to reach the upper levels of the building. 239 people were in the building when the fire started, kicking off a massive search and rescue operation. Eventually, 213 people were rescued from the building, two of whom later died. Another 26 missing people were later confirmed dead according to CCTV. No tally of how many people were injured has been published.

A fire official told the Chinese state broadcaster that the fire spread quickly because of the flammable adhesives and materials stored on the ground floor. Shoe sole materials piled up in stairways made it harder for firefighters to reach the fire and put it out – and blocked workers’ paths to escape the building amid choking toxic smoke. 

While Chinese police have detained the factory owner and frozen the factory’s bank accounts, this deadly fire is not an isolated incident.

“Sustainability” Standards Paper Over Fashion Brands’ Exploitative Purchasing Practices

Fashion brands have been running a global race to the bottom for cheaper wages and lower-cost working conditions for over half a century. Starting in the 1990s, media and advocates have been exposing the consequences for workers: poverty wages and wage theft, physical abuse, child labor, gender-based violence, excessive overtime, and unfit buildings repurposed as factories with delayed maintenance making them even more dangerous. Exposé after exposé revealed that fashion brands’ profits were extracted from exploited workers (mainly women). 

Yet instead of addressing their own purchasing practices as the root cause of abuses, fashion brands put the onus on the factories they purchased from. By writing long supplier codes of conduct, fashion brands made clear that suppliers were expected to respect minimum labor standards and comply with basic health, safety, and sometimes environmental standards. 

Fast forward to today, and corporate social responsibility is an industry in itself, with hundreds of standard-setting organizations and multi-stakeholder initiatives and an estimated $20 billion auditing industry aimed at ensuring compliance. Over the years, the marketing speak has continued to evolve as ethical certifications and social audits have repeatedly come under fire for their failures. But workers continue to suffer the consequences of fashion companies’ purchasing practices – and auditing firms continue to give their stamp of approval to dangerous and exploitative conditions.

BSCI Has a Long History of Deadly Factory Incidents

Just months before the deadly fire, Huiteng Shoe factory was audited to the amfori BSCI (Business Social Compliance Initiative) standard, as well as amfori’s BEPI (Business Environmental Performance Initiative) standard, according to information provided by amfori to Open Supply Hub.¹ This is not the first time that a BSCI audit was conducted shortly before a deadly factory tragedy. 

Tazreen Fashions Factory, Bangladesh

Nearly 14 years ago, another fatal factory fire swept through the Tazreen Fashions factory in Bangladesh. Similar to the Huiteng Shoe fire, the fire started on the first floor and spread, killing 112 people and injuring over 200 more, as, in another similarity, exits were blocked. Less than a year before the fire, the factory had been audited to BSCI standards. The audit noted several non-compliances, including health and safety issues, and was rated “improvement needed.” However, those improvements never happened. In a statement after the fire, BSCI explained that “as no BSCI participating company was and is currently sourcing from this factory, no participant had a relationship that would give the leverage and the responsibility to request improvement measures to be implemented in the factory. The factory is what we called an ‘orphan’, until Wednesday 21 November when another BSCI Participant decided to consider them for future business.”

This excuse makes blatantly clear whose interests the BSCI process serves: Brands, not the rights of the workers in the “orphan” factory. 

In the report Fatal Fashion, published by Clean Clothes Campaign and SOMO, BSCI is quoted stating that, “From now on… fire safety issues will render audits ‘non-compliant’ in all cases. Fire safety non-compliances require fast actions and thus the corrective actions are to be checked in such case. All audit materials and tools regarding fire safety in the BSCI Platform will be reworked.” Yet more than 13 years after that commitment, workers are still dying from a factory that is in BSCI’s database of audited factories, providing false assurances of safety. 

Rana Plaza, Bangladesh

The Rana Plaza building collapsed in 2013, killing 1,134 people and injuring 2500 more. The building housed five garment factories, two of which, New Waves Style and Phantom Apparels, had been recently inspected and certified as meeting BSCI health and safety standards.² Advocates and representatives of injured and dead workers filed a formal complaint with the OECD against the audit firm TÜV Rheinland, which had performed the inspection. The complaint describes the auditors’ failure to detect several major issues at the factory, including child labor, lack of worker rights or ability to file complaints, and a complete failure to identify the obvious issues with the building. Indeed, in the days leading up to the collapse, workers described enormous cracks in the walls and were scared to go to work, yet the trained auditors noted in their report that the building had “good construction quality.” The final statement from the OECD was used by TÜV Rheinland to claim that it had been “exonerated” of responsibility. In reality, the conclusion was that worker rights advocates and the audit firm “were unable to reach agreement because their difference in approaches vis-à-vis social audits and potential ways to improve them were too profound.” 

Amfori BSCI Provides False Illusion of Sustainability, Safety

Following the Rana Plaza collapse, Lorenz Berzau, then-managing director of BSCI, tried to minimize its responsibility, telling the Wall Street Journal, “It’s very important not to expect too much from the social audit.” Last week, amfori BSCI’s response to the Huiteng Shoe factory fire reflects the changing language of the times, but continues to distance itself from responsibility. Ecotextile News writes that “Amfori underlined that such audits represent “a point-in-time review of conditions observed during the monitoring” and should form only one element in broader human rights due diligence.” 

Yet by maintaining audit records in a database for several years, BSCI certainly implies that more long-lasting conclusions can be drawn. Per data added to Open Supply Hub by amfori, the audits were given a two-year expiration date, which implies that the most recent audit score was an A or B on the BSCI scale. Such a rating raises serious questions. The fire hazards, lack of proper exits, and level of emergency preparedness of the factory noted by firefighters and observable in videos of workers stripped nearly naked and standing on the roof to escape flames suggest systemic issues that were unlikely to have changed in the six months since the BSCI audit. 

There are also other clues that something was amiss at the factory. Publicly available supplier lists from JD Sports, one of the buyers at the factory, list it as employing 48 workers. According to the New York Times, “The company’s business filings showed that it employed at least 155 people.” Yet multiple news sources state that 237 workers and two visitors were onsite when the fire broke out. Were these workers off the books, or did the factory recently expand to nearly five times more workers? And if so, was the building safe to accommodate so many workers, or was that part of the challenge in evacuating? 

Once again, the lack of transparency in social auditing hampers accountability. As of this writing, amfori BSCI has not made public the audit reports, nor has the audit firm that conducted the audits submitted in December 2025 or January 2026 been named. Even summary findings or a letter grade from the factory are unavailable except to businesses who pay to be amfori members – once again making clear whose interests amfori BSCI protects. 

Amfori BSCI Must Commit to Real Transparency & Accountability, Not Superficial Investigations

In the aftermath of the tragedy, amfori has promised to investigate its own practices and records to determine whether any further steps are needed. Yet it is clear that what is needed is a fundamental change, not just a little tweaking around the edges. It has been over a decade since the tragedy at Rana Plaza highlighted the shortcomings of BSCI audits at keeping workers safe – and over two decades of evidence of the failings of audits in general. When TÜV Rheinland published its response to the OECD complaint, it agreed that its audits weren’t fit for purpose, pointing instead to the need for what was then known as the Bangladesh Accord. In the intervening years, the program that has now become the International Accord has made massive fires and factory collapses a thing of the past in participating factories in Bangladesh and Pakistan. 

On paper, the world of corporate social responsibility is catching up to what workers, advocates, and researchers have been saying for over two decades: social audits don’t work to protect workers. Yet so far most of that change has amounted to little more than a change in messaging.

Amfori’s website promises “Comprehensive social risk management,” that “[helps] you go beyond audits and meet your social due diligence needs.” The term “beyond audits,” has become a catchphrase – yet what is actually on offer appears to be little more than window dressing.

In the wake of the deaths of 28 workers and the injuries of untold others at the Huiteng Shoe factory, amfori BSCI has now promised to investigate its own practices and records to determine whether any further steps are needed. If that investigation is to be of any use, it needs to ask hard questions. 

• As a first step, BSCI should release audit reports of the facility to allow labor rights advocates to understand its findings. After so many egregious tragedies on its watch, amfori BSCI should not be allowed to “check its own homework.”
• Amfori BSCI should release the name of the audit firm who conducted the assessments at the Huiteng Shoes factory, and any information about any subcontractors who may have participated in the audit.
• BSCI’s standards for auditors include a specific memo meant to address the known increased risk of fire safety in factories in China. This memo includes additional documentation requirements, including information on “any licenses, permits, inspection reports, fines, etc. related to the building,” which are to be attached to the audit report. This information should also be made available to labor rights advocates. 
• Amfori BSCI’s standards include 13 “Performance Areas,” with standards on occupational health and safety, no forced or child labor, fair pay and decent working hours, “workers involvement and protection,” and the right of freedom of association and collective bargaining. A meaningful investigation would include questioning whether BSCI can truly ensure that workers’ freedom of association is protected in a country where independent trade unions are forbidden. 
• Lastly, assuring access to remedy is a critical aspect of the UN Guiding Principles on Busienss and Human Rights (UNGPs). Too often when supply chain abuses are exposed, brands point to participation in programs such as amfori BSCI’s to distance themselves and claim to have done their due diligence. So far, the factory has been linked to UK retailer JD Sports Fashion³ and global brands including Slazenger and HITEC among others. What steps will amfori BSCI take to ensure that brands do not use its program to dodge accountability? How will amfori BSCI facilitate remedy for impacted workers and the families of the deceased? What measures has BSCI implemented since 2012 to address the “orphan factory” issue raised in the Tazreen Fashion case?

Conclusion

28 workers are dead, and still more are injured. So far, the response from JD Sports, one of the buyers from the factory, and amfori BSCI has been little more than condolences, thoughts, and the vague promise of investigation. This is not the first time we’ve been here. But this fatal fire suggests that all the past thoughts, promises, and investigations have not brought actual change. While the rhetoric has changed since the factory fires of the 2010s, the results have not. Not one brand or certifier or auditor has spoken clearly of the need for remedy; instead, all have issued statements distancing themselves from responsibility.

On LinkedIn, amfori continues to post content positioning its solutions, including BCSI, as the path for companies to meet new European Union standards for human rights due diligence. Under the posts, a commenter repeatedly raises questions about the Huiteng Shoes fire, sharing what are described as photos of the factory with bars over windows, blocking workers’ path to exit and other critical safety issues. We have not been able to verify the claims that the commenter is making – but the concerns are very real. And they provide a stark contrast between amfori BSCI’s promises and the reality of dead workers and with little transparency or accountability in sight.

Amfori BSCI has promised an investigation. Too often, such promises serve more to delay and distract until the tragedy has disappeared from the headlines. This can’t be such a case. Fundamental change is needed before another person dies at work.

1.  According to Open Supply Hub’s data, the BSCI audit results were submitted December 16, 2025 with an expiration date of December 16, 2027 and the BEPI audit results were submitted January 13, 2026 with an expiration date of January 13, 2028. An “Environmental Risk Assessment” was also submitted as completed January 13, 2026. ↩︎
2. At that time, BSCI was a project of the Foreign Trade Association (FTA), a group of European retailers and importers. In 2018, the FTA rebranded as amfori; it remains a trade group of retailers, importers, and brands.
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3. As of July 17, 2026, JD Sports has added a red flag next to the name of the Huiteng Shoes factory on its supplier list. After a few words of condolences, a statement at the bottom of the list reads, “JD Group can confirm that it has not placed any orders in this factory since 2025. The last products manufactured for JD were shipped in January 2026, several months before this tragic incident. In accordance with our standard supplier governance processes, our published supply chain list is reviewed and updated twice annually. As the factory was no longer an active supplier to JD, it will be removed from the published list as part of the next scheduled update.” We have not been able to independently validate JD Sports’ claim with shipping records as of this writing, however it seems unlikely that the systemic safety issues listed above would have developed in just six months since it claims the last order shipped.
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