Initiatives
Higgs Index

Indicators in Practice ... The Higg Index for Sustainable Apparel

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

NEWS & INSIGHTS Indicators in Practice Article by Aaron Reuben, Yale F&ES '12 The Higg Index for Sustainable Apparel Does this shirt come in green? A group of footware and apparel business leaders have launched the most sophisticated environmental performance review of name brand clothing yet. The Higgs Index will be used by big brands to critically assess the impacts of their products and, it is hoped, shift design, supply, manufactering, and shipping towards more sustainable practices. Companies like Target and Nike are already using this green business index. Scope: Global products and supply chains Intended Audience: Businesses Project by: The Sustainable Apparel Coalition, comprised of apparel and footwear industry groups and non-profit affiliates. Issue Addressed: General environmental sustainability of apparel products. Metrics considered include those on energy use, waste, and toxic outputs from the input materials, manufacturing, and packaging of major apparel products. Select Results: The Sustainable Apparel Coalition released the Higgs Index 1.0 for Sustainable Apparel earlier this summer to aims to aggregate information on the environmental performance of products from major apparel brands and provide firms and manufacterures will real, reliable scores on the environmental performance of their products. The Index was just released this summer (2012) but is already being used by several large apparel companies and retailers, including Nike (whose Apparel Environmental Design Tool contributed to the effort) and Target, to critically examine their product lines. Future versions of the index will include social concerns and be expanded to cover footwear products in addition to apparel. Summary: In early 2012, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, an association of over 60 apparel and footwear brands, retailers and suppliers, and non-profit organizations, released the Higgs Index 1.0 for Sustainable Apparel. An expansion of the Eco Index (an internal self-assessment tool created by the outdoor apparel industry) and Nike's Apparel Environmental Design Tool, the Higg Index aims to aggregate information on the environmental performance of products from major apparel brands. The Index considers performance across the full life-cycle of a product, including impacts from 'input materials, manufacturing, packaging, transportation, use, and end-of-life.' According to its creators, the Higgs Index is meant to be both a 'self-assessment tool' for producers to identify their own weaknesses and opportunities for improvement and, eventually, to be a 'starting point of engagement, education, and collaboration among stakeholders.' The Index currently considers only environmental quality impacts - but the Coalition plans to include labor and other social impacts in future versions (as well as expanding the product categories to include footwear). For now, considered metrics include water use and quality, energy use and emissions, and raw waste and hazardous wastes. Data, for now, appears to be provided by companies themselves. According to the Coalition, the Higg Index was designed with four key goals in mind. Understand and quantify sustainability impacts of apparel and footwear products; Dramatically reduce redundancy in measuring sustainability in the apparel and footwear industries; Drive business value through reducing risk and uncovering efficiency; and Create a common means to communicate sustainability to stakeholders. Data Notes (from www.apparelcoalition.org) The Higg Index 1.0 considers environmental performance at three increasing scales: product level (product by product), factory level (for suppliers), and brand level (aggregating product-specific impacts across the brand). At each scale, data on environmental impacts from materials, manufacturing, and packaging are considered. Within the product level 'module' the Higg Index includes a subcomponent index, the Materials Sustainability Index, which considers cradle-to-gate life-cycle data in an effort to specifically engage 'designers and the global supply chain,' although it is not a life cycle assessment tool in and of itself. It is unclear how different component scores are aggregated and weighted in the final index - the Coalition reports that 'suggested weights were defined based on a survey' of Coalition members - but future versions of the Index promise to be based on stakeholder desires and a 'multi-criteria analysis' that should allow different audiences to weight their own, customized index. A default “equal weights” index is also available. For more information on current and future scoring processes for the Higg Index see the Coalition’s scoring FAQs. Impacts Because the Higg Index is a tool primarily created by industry, for industry, early adoption of its metrics in decision-making processes seems high. Target told The Wall Street Journal in July that they are already using the indicator tool to assess the sustainability of their supply chains. Representatives from Adidas noted. “We have already been able to use the Higg Index as an environmental indicator in the production of many of our products by all brands.' They added, “We intend for the Higg Index to form an increasingly important part of our overall product creation and production strategy in the years to come.' Whether the use of this new metric will ultimately drive real environmental quality benefits still remains to be seen, however. Sources Information for this case study came from: The Sustainable Apparel web site, found here: http://www.apparelcoalition.org/ Various news sources, including The Wall Street Journal and Forbes