Higg is developing partnerships with Bluesign and ZDHC (Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals) to accelerate the use of environmentally-safe chemicals among global brands and manufacturers.
The Context: The production of textile chemicals has a significant impact on the global environment.
- According to a recent ZDHC report, between 6% and 8% of all greenhouse gases can be attributed to chemicals produced in the textiles industry.
- Individually, Bluesign, ZDHC and Higg help consumer goods businesses improve how chemicals are used in their design and manufacturing processes.
- The use of hazardous chemicals in the production of apparel also harms garment workers who handle them and has the potential to cause serious adverse health impacts on the end consumer.
The Collaboration: As part of the developing partnerships, the parties aim for more advanced integration of data for their customers in order to help textile manufacturers improve chemical management, reduce the risk of water toxicity, better understand and address human health impacts, and eliminate chemicals of concern from upstream production processes.
- Higg and Bluesign intend to develop stronger data and services offerings for their customers to eliminate redundancies and support Bluesign's impact services.
- These two companies will explore how mutual customers can share data between the platforms, with Bluesign facilities gaining access to Higg's facility tools.
- Higg will work with ZDHC to bring the latter's facility improvement resources to Higg customers, including the Resource Efficiency Module, which is focused on GHG emissions, water and pollution.
- Higg will be cross-mapping its data with both ZDHC and Bluesign to enable factory customers to complete Higg's FEM assessments without re-entering their data.
What They Said:
Partnering with Bluesign will allow us to help our shared customer base enrich their insights, make better chemical purchasing decisions to reduce the negative impacts of manufacturing on worker health and safety, and protect the environment through better resource management. Soon, customers will be able to take advantage of tighter integration between Bluesign and Higg assessments. At the same time, through our developing partnership with ZDHC we'll be able to explore more powerful, scalable solutions for joint customers that need to improve chemical usage and wastewater treatment across their entire supply chain.
— James Schaffer
Chief Strategy Officer
Higg
With our common objectives of supporting responsible manufacturing practices, sharing technology and expertise we drive the industry to circular practices. This ultimately minimises fashion's environmental footprint.
— Frank Michel
Executive Director
ZDHC
Focusing on chemical management is essential to creating a cleaner supply chain and tackling climate change. It is important to partner with all stakeholders to drive change and mitigate the effects of harmful chemicals across the product life cycle. Our partnership with Higg is a further step toward that.
— Daniel Rufenacht
Chief Executive Officer
Bluesign
Minimising Fragmentation: This new phase in the relationships between the companies reduces industry fragmentation and accelerates environmental performance in the supply chain.
- Currently, Bluesign is a ZDHC contributor and acts as a third-party verifier, approving the ZDHC MRSL Conformance Levels of chemical products, and working hand-in-hand with ZDHC on methodology, structure, and criteria.
- Currently, more than 19,000 Bluesign Approved chemicals have achieved ZDHC MRSL Conformance Level 3 (the highest ZDHC MRSL Conformance Level achievable at this time) in accordance with the ZDHC MRSL V2.0.
- These chemical products have also been added to the ZDHC Gateway, the database dedicated to enabling safer choices of chemical products for the textile, leather, apparel and footwear industry.
