The comprehensive report on the Higg Index review, accompanied by a set of recommendations, is expected to be submitted by June this year, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) has announced.
- The announcement was made by Jeremy Lardeau, vice-president of the Higg Index, in a blog post Wednesday.
- The SAC had paused its consumer facing transparency programme globally in June 2022 in the wake of the Norwegian Consumer Authority (NCA) sending a notification to two SAC member companies—Norrøna and H&M—regarding the use of LCA data being used to support consumer facing environmental claims.
- The SAC had then commissioned an independent third-party expert review of the Higg MSI data and methodology.
An Update on the Review: The SAC is working with management consultancy KPMG to coordinate the project, including recruitment of three panels of independent experts.
- There will be a panel for the FEM review, one for the BRM, and another for the MSI and Product Module.
- Each of these panels will be made up of around ten independent professionals with a cross-section of expertise and background.
- This will include technical and environmental specialists, academics and representatives from civil society.
- None of the individuals will be from member organisations and none will have previously worked on the Higg Index tools.
Once the recruitment of the panels is finalised, the review process will take about eleven weeks. - This will include briefing and preparation of all individuals, a Q&A phase for panelists to come back with specific points and clarifications, the review and evaluation itself, and then the creation of the report.
- Each panelist will provide in the region of 50 hours to the review.
- The comprehensive report and recommendations are expected to be delivered in June 2023.
- Once received, the SAC will publish the report in full for members, stakeholders and interested parties from industry and beyond to read.
But the Higg MSI is Still Active: In June 2022, the SAC had paused the consumer facing transparency programme globally. This specifically meant temporarily removing the published Higg Index seal and scorecard from the participating online retail platforms while further evaluation takes place.
- However, it had underlined at the time: The Higg MSI and other Higg Index tools are still active and available to all users on the Higg platform and will remain so during this review.
- This was reiterated by Lardeau: Of course, it is important to be clear that the full suite of tools is still very much active and available to all users. The review is being carried out to ensure continuous improvement, the context in which the tools are used continues to evolve, and with it so must the tools.
