Higg Index
Also known as: Higg BRM, Higg FEM, Sustainable Apparel Coalition Higg
Tool suite from Sustainable Apparel Coalition/Cascale (San Francisco) for self-assessment of environmental and social performance in the textile industry — brand, facility and product level.
Description
The Higg Index is not a certification but a toolset for standardised measurement of sustainability performance in the textile and apparel industry. It was released in 2011 by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC, rebranded in 2024 as Cascale) headquartered in San Francisco and is technically operated by the software provider Higg Inc. (now Worldly).
The most important modules are: Higg FEM (Facility Environmental Module) — factory environmental performance across seven categories (energy/CO₂, water, wastewater, emissions, waste, chemistry, management system); Higg FSLM (Facility Social & Labor Module) — social assessment converging with SLCP; Higg BRM (Brand & Retail Module) — self-assessment of entire brands/retailers; Higg MSI (Materials Sustainability Index) — environmental scoring of fibres and materials; Higg PM (Product Module) — life-cycle assessment of finished products. Results are upgraded through verification by accredited assessors. Higg scores are increasingly used between brands and suppliers in the sourcing process but are controversial due to criticism of opaque material scoring (Higg MSI) and greenwashing accusations — in 2022 the Norwegian Consumer Authority prohibited its product-level consumer communication.
Properties
| Issued by | Cascale (formerly SAC), San Francisco, since 2011 |
|---|---|
| Core modules | FEM, FSLM, BRM, MSI, PM |
| Operating platform | Worldly (formerly Higg Inc.) |
| Point of criticism | Norway 2022: product-level consumer communication banned |
Related product categories
Sources & references
1- Cascale (Higg Index) cascale.org https://cascale.org/tools-programs/higg-index-tools/
