The Higg Index was not built overnight, but it was an effort of many stakeholders across the industry. The four primary building blocks of the Higg Index, which lay the foundation for the structure and content for the tools are the Outdoor Industry Association’s Eco Index, which influenced the Environmental Brand Module; the Materials Sustainability Index, originally created by Nike, which is the base materials information used for product assessment; the Global Social Compliance Program’s reference tools, which influences how we structured the Facility Modules; and a number of social/labor best practice tools like SAI social fingerprint, FLA SCI among others to influence our Social/Labor Beta modules.
How the Higg Index can benefit you:
- The Index and its tools allows one to understand where you are performing well and areas where you are not as strong, which can lead you to identify sustainability opportunities.
- It is a starting place for education.It allows one to learn more about sustainability impacts and to benchmark performance over time. This awareness is key to motivating change and reducing negative impacts.
- By creating a standard self-assessment, the Higg Index creates a common language to communicate sustainability and allows for members along the value chain to collaborate.
- The Index provides a roadmap for improvement through the way each tool is structured. Each tool asks questions on a range of performance, so it allows the users to see what is aspirational.
The Sustainable Apparel Coalition is the apparel, footwear and home textile industry’s foremost alliance for sustainable production. The Coalition’s main focus is on building the Higg Index, a standardized supply chain measurement tool for all industry participants to understand the environmental and social and labor impacts of making and selling their products and services.
The Sustainable Apparel Coalition is launching a verification pilot for the Higg Index Facility Environmental Module, an environmental assessment for footwear, apparel, and home textile manufacturers that measures/scores facility-specific environmental impacts and environmental management.
