Fashion retailer H&M has pledged to pay a living wage to its 850,000 textile employees by 2018.
The Swedish organisation, which has more than 200 UK stores, said it would support two of its factories in Bangladesh and one in Cambodia in 2014 to adopt a fair living wage.
H&M intends to expand the programme by 2018 to cover a further 750 factories that supply its clothes.
During the past year, the retailer has worked on ways to address wages and working conditions in Asian factories following the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh on 23 April.
An H&M spokesperson said: “It has always been our vision that all textile workers should be able to live on their wage.
“We believe that the wage development in production countries, which is often driven by governments, is taking too long. H&M wants to take further action and encourage the whole industry to follow.
He explained that with size comes responsibility and H&M has the ability to contribute to change. “We are willing to pay more so that the supplier can pay higher wages. It is a collaboration between H&M and our suppliers.”
