The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) and Wordly have launched the 4.0 version of the Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) tool. Higg FEM 4.0 promises to deliver better data quality.
THE FEATURES: The 4.0 version seeks to enable more accurate reporting by offering improved and more streamlined usability.
- Featuring a new anomaly detector designed to flag inconsistencies, Higg FEM 4.0 provides more accurate reporting, ultimately enabling a more accurate environmental assessment of the industry.
- The tool also offers a deeper look at key environmental issues such as groundwater and soil contamination to help the industry make improvements at a global scale on critical issues.
- The new tool is said to align with key global standards—including the GHG Protocol, the SBTi, and ZDHC Roadmap to Zero—to drive emissions reductions and reduce duplicative reporting.
- Additionally, Higg FEM 4.0 includes targeted questions that are more relevant to a facility’s processes, weeding out questions that are irrelevant.
THE UPDATE: Higg FEM 4.0 was built on member and stakeholder feedback collected over the past two years. It reflects the input of over 140 representatives across 12 Member Expert Teams (METs), including 62 representing manufacturers, 57 representing brands/retailers, 10 service providers, and five representing affiliate members.
- The METs, the FEM Strategic Council, partner organisations, and members provided insights and feedback. The insights collected helped to shape the FEM framework, scoring methodology, question content, and more to build a tool that meets relevant industry standards and protocol.
- The Higg FEM 4.0 was tested by over 400 users who provided feedback within the platform.
WHAT THEY SAID:
Higg FEM 4.0 will bring impactful and necessary changes—from improved data quality to alignment with relevant industry standards, the updated tool offers a wide range of benefits to ultimately reshape how sustainable decisions are made along the supply chain.
— Jeremy Lardeau
Vice-President
SAC Higg Index
Elevate Textiles is looking forward to the release of Higg FEM 4.0. Higg FEM is an essential part of transparently sharing our verified sustainability metrics and progress with our customers. We also use Higg FEM as a foundational element of our overall sustainability program to ensure that all of our facilities around the world are meeting our expectations and improving their performance towards our facility-level and corporate goals and targets, including our Science-Based Targets for GHG reductions.
— Jimmy Summers
Vice-President of Environmental, Health, Safety & Sustainability
Elevate Textiles
At VF, the Higg FEM assessment enables the company and our brands to measure key Scope 3 supplier-related impacts. VF teams, along with the SAC staff, engage directly with our vendor partners to assess and improve supplier carbon emissions.
— Alan Chin
Senior Manager, Supply Chain Sustainability
VF Corporation
Higg FEM 4.0 is a game changer. With new customised user experiences for facilities, Higg FEM 4.0 is an assessment tailored to facilities that gives brands visibility into the nuanced impact of their supply chain partners, so together they can identify hotspots and effectively improve their environmental footprint.
— James Schaffer
Chief Strategy Officer
Worldly
