SAN FRANCISCO – The Sustainable Apparel Coalition and Higg Co. have welcomed the publication of a recent study from the University of California, Berkeley, which says that fashion sustainability tools such as the Higg Index will only drive ‘limited’ environmental change in their current form.
The report specifically called out the Higg Facility Environmental Module (Higg FEM), concluding that “increased transparency and more robust incentives between buyers and factories are critical to enabling its full potential.”
Yet the findings are something that both the SAC and Higg Co. say they agree with. “We absolutely agree that scores should be transparent. Open and credible data has always been the ultimate goal of these industry tools, and we are getting closer to this being realised. Manufacturer members of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition can already communicate their performance scores, and, in the coming months, all verified Higg FEM assessments will be shareable,” revealed SAC Executive Director, Amina Razvi.
After the report’s completion – which focused on version 2.0 of Higg FEM that was shelved in December 2017 – Higg Co invited the report’s co-author, recent Berkeley PhD graduate and data scientist, Niklas Lollo to consult for the technology company.
“Nik is an incredibly talented data scientist with unparalleled knowledge of Higg FEM assessment data. We want to use his insights to continue to learn from our data, identify weaknesses, and improve our tools,” said Jason Kibbey, CEO of Higg Co.
