The textile and garment industry is Pakistan's most important manufacturing sector. In 2022 it accounted for about 57% (SBP 2022) of export earnings and contributed 8.5% of total GDP (BOI/IFC 2022). Being a major exporter, the sector faces, increasing pressures to follow international best practices, vis-à-vis labour, social and environmental standards. In this regard, third-party audits have proven to be ineffective to ensure compliance of national and international laws and regulations. One of the reasons is that third-party audits do not contribute to sustainable development because of a lack of involvement of workers and line managers in the decision-making process. Thus, there is no ownership for sustainability measures, especially at the shop floor of the factory.

To address this problem, GIZ developed a "Dialogue" approach, which is a change management methodology based on the concept of process consultation. This methodology was, jointly developed by GIZ and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) with support of leading international brands namely Adidas®, Tchibo® and C&A®. It has been successfully implemented by GIZ in several industries in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other countries.

In 2014 the methodology was introduced in Pakistan as "Dialogue for Compliance" and by end of 2022 supported more than 100 companies from the textile and associated sectors successfully. It is now known as the “Dialogue for Sustainability (DfS)”. DfS is a is a self-help approach based on process consultation, designed to bring together various representatives throughout the organisational hierarchy, to work as a "Change Management Team (CMT)" towards achieving common goal of sustainability (social, economic, environmental) in organizational operations.