We’re proud to announce that in December 2016 we joined the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) and became approved SAC trainers in January 2017. As such, we will use the SAC’s sustainability measurement tool, the Higg Index, to drive environmental and social improvements across our own and our customers’ supply chains.
With our membership in the SAC we join over 175 global brands, retailers and manufacturers, as well as government, non-profit environmental organizations, and academic institutions, such as adidas, C&A, Gap, H&M, Nike, Puma and many more. We are collectively committed to improving brand and supply chain sustainability in the apparel and footwear industries.
Anyway, this is not our first experience with Sustainable Apparel Coalition. During her time as Head of Environmental Services at adidas Group Karin Ekberg was involved in establishing the SAC and developing the Higg Index. She also held the role of Chair of the Board of Directors at the Sustainable Apparel Coalition from 2012 to 2013 and has continued to be involved since then. And of course we use the Higg Index for our consultations.
The Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s Higg Index
The Higg Index delivers a holistic overview of the sustainability performance of a product or company—a big-picture perspective that is essential for progress to be made. It’s an open source, indicator-based tool that allows suppliers, manufacturers, brands and retailers to evaluate materials, products, facilities and processes based on environmental and product design choices and identifies areas for improvement.
Today there have been 13,000 Higg assessments conducted. Leadership & Sustainability offers a broad support with the integration of the various Higg modules:
Brand Tools
The Higg Index’s Brand Modules are used by apparel, footwear and home textiles brands of all sizes to measure the environmental and social and labor performance of their design, sourcing and operations. The modules assess corporate policies and practices in every impact area and at every level of sustainability, from basic, compliance-level practices to advanced and far-reaching best practices.
Leadership & Sustainability has conducted a benchmarking of a group of companies within the sector with the help of the brand module. The results show that there is still significant room for improvements, even for the leading companies.
Product Tools
Designers and developers use the Higg Index’s Product Tools to design the best products from an environmental standpoint.
Leadership & Sustainability offers trainings related to the product tools as well as LCA studies to complement the tool usage.
Facility Tools
Manufacturers use the Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s Higg Facility Modules to measure the social and environmental performance of their facilities. These modules measure impacts at individual facilities. The Environmental Module assessments are now being verified by SAC-approved, on-site assessors.
Leadership & Sustainability offers support in implementing the facility tools in your manufacturing or in your supply chain. We conduct verification visits and are involved in the FEM3.0 pressure test currently taking place. Furthermore, we support brands and suppliers in developing and implementing improvement programs.
Meet us!
To learn more about how we can support you, we invite you to set up a free 30 minute consultation. Please specify the topic you’re especially interested in or if you’d prefer a general consultation.
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If you’re interested to learn how to assess manufacturing facilities, materials and products, join our presentation about the Sustainable Apparel Coalition Higg Index at Performance Days 2017 in Munich.
Date: Thursday, 27th April 2017
Time: 15:45 – 16:45
Location: MTC World of Fashion, Munich – Presentation Area next to the PERFORMANCE FORUM
Book your free visitor ticket here.
We’re looking forward to meeting you either in our free consultation or at Performance Days!
Meet our team.
Read more about SAC.
Read more about The Sustainability Vision in the Textile and Fashion Sector.
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