About Sustaining Voices
Sourcing Journal’s Sustaining Voices celebrates the efforts the apparel industry is making toward securing a more environmentally responsible future through creative innovations, scalable solutions and forward-thinking initiatives that are spinning intent into action.
Overview
The Sustainable Apparel Coalition continues to hone the Higg Index to improve supply-chain transparency.
Deep Dive
In the eight years since the “unlikely duo” of Patagonia and Walmart created the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), its Higg Index suite of sustainability assessment tools has grown from strength to strength. New modules are regularly rolled out to allow members of the the 240-member organization—which include boldface names such as Adidas, H&M and Levi Strauss—to adopt a common language to promote transparency, maintain compliance and measure the social and environmental costs of their products and businesses.
To broaden the scope of its impact, the SAC is spinning off the technology behind the Higg Index into its own entity, the public-benefit company known as Higg Co., which will fall under the leadership of former SAC CEO Jason Kibbey. Besides hosting the Higg Index, Higg Co. will offer bespoke solutions for companies to harness data and analytics to make sharper, more strategic decisions across their enterprises.
The SAC, a majority stakeholder in Higg Co., will continue to support the evolution of the tools while driving multi-stakeholder collaboration behind the scenes, according to Amina Razvi, interim executive director at the SAC. Indeed, the tools will continue to grow and adapt to the industry’s changing needs. Eventually, the Higg Index might take into account information about microfibers—tiny fragments of plastic, smaller than one-fifth of an inch, that slough off synthetic textiles and pollute ocean ecosystems.
“The impact of microplastics is a hot topic right now, and consumers want to know how we can eliminate them from the environment,” she said. “As soon as a trusted scientific methodology for measuring microplastics is available, we plan to include it.”
The SAC, as an organization, isn’t shy of transformation, either, with Higg Co. just one case in point. In October 2017, the SAC created the Apparel Impact Institute with the goal of identifying initiatives within the apparel, footwear and textile industries with the potential to achieve transformative social and environmental change. Mill improvements across the globe will be its inaugural challenge.
“The work the Sustainable Apparel Coalition is doing is groundbreaking,” she added. “We are bringing together the global apparel, footwear and textile industries to collaboratively realize its vision of an industry that produces no unnecessary environmental harms and protects the people and communities affected by its activities.”
In what areas has the fashion industry made the biggest strides in sustainability in the last five years?
“The greatest improvement we have seen in the last five years is the industry’s shift away from compliance and toward performance improvement. Through the unique collaboration the SAC offers, we have been able to break down some of the traditional barriers among brands, retailers and manufacturers. Organizations are improving how they work together to drive changes that support the well-being of all stakeholders across the value chain.
It’s been exciting to see companies set science-based targets and make large-scale commitments to advance change in the industry. Gap Inc. has committed to conserving 10 billion liters of water by 2020. Levi Strauss & Co. plans to source 100 percent renewable electricity by investing in renewable energy across our owned-and-operated facilities by 2025. Walmart recently announced that by 2022 it will aim to source exclusively with textile mills that use the Higg Facility Environmental Module. H&M Group sought to implement improved wage-management systems in facilities producing half the group’s product volume and exceeded this goal last year. These are just a few of the examples we see across the membership of companies making commitments and taking action to transform the industry.
We’re also seeing improved industry collaboration and partnerships across the globe. The support of organizations like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has been instrumental in furthering our mutual efforts to improve social and environmental sustainability performance in the apparel, footwear and textile sectors.”