Two months ago, on July 9, 2026, a massive factory fire at Huiteng Shoe Factory killed 28 people and injured untold others. The factory had recently been certified to meet amfori’s BSCI standard for health and safety–a finding that raised many questions, as there’s a history of catastrophic factory incidents at factories certified to BSCI standards. In a blog post, we raised concerns about BSCI’s promise to investigate and called for transparency, including publishing the full audit report. Two months after it promised to investigate, amfori BSCI has yet to issue any public statements. But now, we have received a leaked copy of the full audit report, which names Bureau Veritas as the auditing firm. Its findings raise many questions about the integrity of the audit of the Huiteng Shoe Factory, especially when evaluated in context. 

Health & Safety Issues Given “A” Grade Just Months Before Fatal Fire

The 13-page summary audit report aligns with several facts that were already public – and reveals shocking new information. Just months before the blaze, the Huiteng Shoe Factory got an overall “B” rating on amfori BSCI’s scale, suggesting that it was in the top tier of factories in the world. The factory got an A for Performance Area (PA) 7, Occupational Health and Safety – truly shocking for a building that burned only a few months later, with plenty of indicators of systemic safety issues. Yet, despite its “A” rating, the summary report shows 4 non-compliances with occupational health and safety standards and Chinese law, including a lack of PPE and safety training for workers and failure to label or properly package toxic glues and other chemicals.

Shoe glue is well-documented to contain highly toxic and flammable chemicals, causing deadly cancers, anemia, and acute poisoning of workers who handle or breathe them. And, while no official investigation about the cause of the fire is publicly available as of this writing, shoe glue and other chemicals are part of the reason that the fire was so very deadly. According to the China Daily,

The rescue was further complicated by the fact that the factory stored massive amounts of highly flammable materials, including shoe components and glue, leading to an instantaneous spread of high-temperature smoke and a full-scale multi-dimensional combustion after the firefighters had arrived…Workers trapped on the roof faced severe threats from the blazing material stacks, while sudden shifts in wind direction during the operation further escalated escape and rescue difficulties.

Just months before, these improperly stored glues had been given an “A” rating for occupational health and safety. 

Did Bureau Veritas’ Audit Report Skip Deadly Fire Safety Issues Before Blaze?

The non-compliances named in the audit are a grim foreshadowing of the fatal fire to come. But what wasn’t named in the audit is even more grim. News footage from China Central Television (CCTV) surveys the blackened wreckage of the building. In the screenshots included here, there appear to be bars over the windows and locked cages, possibly for storing materials. Absent a full investigation, we can still note that barred windows are known to be a serious safety hazard, trapping workers inside if a fire breaks out and hindering rescue efforts. 

Amfori BSCI’s Occupational Health and Safety standards have a total of 81 standards or questions for the auditor to evaluate, with 20 of those dubbed “crucial questions. Any factory that gets a “no” on a “crucial question” cannot get an A or B rating. There are 5 “crucial questions” in the occupational health and safety section. 7.15 asks the auditor to verify, “Is there satisfactory evidence that the auditee ensures that escape routes, aisles and emergency exits in the production site are not blocked, easily accessible and clearly marked?” Other critical questions touch on workers’ ability to leave and whether there is proper fire-fighting equipment on sight. The audit of the Huiteng Factory Fire did not flag any concerns on these criteria. The audit report also does not note any non-compliances with criteria covering building and electrical safety and evacuation plans.

While brands often resort to defending themselves by saying that audit results are a mere snapshot in time, structural issues such as barred windows are unlikely to have been added in the months since the audit. And the mountains of charred shoe materials shown blocking passages were noted by the fire investigators as key factors in the deadliness of the fire.

Discrepancies in Death Toll, Social Audit Findings

Absent a full investigation, including interviews with survivors, we cannot be certain of just what auditors failed to detect, but other elements of the audit report raise questions about the accuracy of the audit. The audit conducted by Bureau Veritas notes that there were 48 workers present in the five-story building, 41 of whom were noted as “domestic migrant workers.” As we noted in our last article, “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?” Having the audit report in hand does not clarify this question, but it does raise questions about the integrity of the audit. 

Bureau Veritas Has a History of “Corruption,” Failure to Document Forced Labor

This would not be the first time that the integrity or accuracy of Bureau Veritas’ audits have been called into question. The watchdog group China Labor Watch (CLW) conducted a two-year investigation of Bureau Veritas audits in the country. Per CLW’s reporting, 53% of the audits reviewed “yielded significant evidence of corruption, the most of any major audit company.” The corrupt practices documented included auditors extorting bribes from factory managers to leave non-compliances off audit reports or minimize the extent of serious non-compliances. In other cases, auditors accepted gifts or services from the factory, including karaoke outings, spa treatments, sexual services, or electronics or other products made at the factories they inspected. In some cases, the auditors were offering to give a better grade on the audit report than conditions merited; in others, they were merely abusing their power for personal gain. 

In the years since, Bureau Veritas has issued audit reports that concluded there was no forced labor where clear, credible evidence existed. In one case, Bureau Veritas audited a factory manufacturing for the brand Lacoste located inside an state-sponsored internment camp where workers in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) were being forced to work – and concluded no forced labor was present¹. In another case, Bureau Veritas was one of the social audit firms that audited Top Glove factories in Malaysia a total of 28 times in the years 2017-2018 and found no evidence of abuses. In this same period, investigative reporters from the Guardian found that workers were “trapped” in the factories, deprived of pay, forced to live in squalid conditions, and other indicators of forced labor. 

Bureau Veritas Put Client Interests Before Human Rights Obligations

In a previous article, we delved into the common thread of BCSI certification at the Huiteng Shoe Factory and Rana Plaza, the factory complex in Bangladesh that collapsed killing 1134 people and injuring over 2500 more. Bureau Veritas was one of the audit firms that inspected the site multiple times in the years leading up to the collapse. Following the collapse, Bangladeshi garment workers brought a $2.3 billion class action lawsuit against Bureau Veritas and its client Loblaws for failing to ensure workers’ safety. Bureau Veritas’ defense in the Rana Plaza case could be summed up as saying “We were just doing what our client asked,” a position that highlights yet again that corporate social responsibility programs and the social audits that uphold them protect corporate interests over workers. 

In the years since Rana Plaza, Bureau Veritas audits have continued to fail to document grave abuses and health and safety violations, as detailed above. One thing that has changed in the years since Rana Plaza is France’s Duty of Vigilance law, which aims to make clear that French companies such as Bureau Veritas have human rights obligations that extend beyond customer satisfaction. 

Amfori BSCI, Bureau Veritas Need to Take Accountability for Roles in Huiteng Shoe Factory Fire

Bureau Veritas has yet to make a public statement on the Huiteng Shoe Factory fire. This is not entirely surprising as its role in auditing the factory has not been public. This fact underscores the need for transparency and disclosure in the auditing industry – and now, the need for action. 

In our previous article on the Huiteng Shoe Factory fire, we raised several key questions for amfori BSCI, which had promised an investigation into the fire. We now have a copy of the audit report, one of the initial questions, yet it is not due to any commitment to transparency on behalf of amfori BSCI. The audit report raises some questions about the accuracy and integrity of Bureau Veritas’ audit of the Huiteng Shoe Factory. And, taken in context, these questions are even more concerning: Bureau Veritas has a documented history of audit fraud in China, and many experts have raised concerns about the reliability and integrity of social audits in the country more broadly.

Both amfori BSCI and Bureau Veritas market themselves as partners who can help corporations ensure due diligence and human rights in their supply chains. Now it’s time for them to lead with transparency and take accountability for any failures in their auditing and compliance systems that may have played a role in this tragedy that left 28 people dead and an unknown number of others injured. 

1.  Experts, including the International Labour Organization (ILO), have repeatedly emphasized that social audits are inadequate for detecting state-sponsored forced labor. ↩︎