Dive Brief:

• Swedish discount apparel retailer H&M is a major buyer of clothing from Bangladesh, where poor building infrastructure and deplorable working conditions killed more than 1,100 people when a building infamously collapsed last year.

• The retailer said there is naturally more interest in sustainability and safety from its customers, insisting that its cheap prices need not preclude fair working conditions in the factories that make its clothing.

• H&M has grown thanks to cheap production in Asia and faces increasing competition from retailers like Forever 21 that sell even cheaper products.

Dive Insight:

H&M is on to something here — the young people who make up its customer base are no fans of poor working conditions for the workers that produce the fashion and other products they want to buy. It’s admirable and even smart for the discount-clothing retailer to say it wants to ensure fair working conditions while continuing to keep prices low. But of course, something’s got to give. If improvements to working conditions cost money, someone will have to pay. Either H&M will have to pass on those expenses to its customers, or it will have to trim its own margins. This is an area to watch as consumers, especially young ones, become increasingly less tolerant of companies allowing poor conditions for global workers.