Summary
Details
- Global
The Higg Index can be used by brands, manufacturers, suppliers, and retailers in the apparel, footwear, and textile industries, as well as other consumer goods sectors seeking to assess and improve environmental performance across their supply chains.
Deep dive
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Overview
The Higg Index was introduced in 2012 to create a common approach for assessing sustainability in the fashion industry. It consists of several modules that evaluate different parts of the value chain, including facilities, materials, products, and brand operations.
Key components include the Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) for manufacturing impacts, the Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) for material-level impacts, and the Product Module (PM) for lifecycle product assessment. Together, these tools provide a consistent system for measuring impacts from raw materials through production and end-of-life.
The Higg Index is widely used by brands, manufacturers, and suppliers as a voluntary tool to improve transparency and enable more comparable sustainability data across global supply chains.
Methodology and Verification
The Higg Index combines data-driven environmental assessment with structured self-reporting and verification processes, linking measurement directly to climate and environmental performance.
At its core, the methodology collects data across the product lifecycle—from raw material extraction to manufacturing, distribution, and end-of-life—and converts it into standardised impact scores. These scores cover key environmental indicators such as greenhouse gas emissions (global warming potential), energy use, water consumption, waste, and chemical impacts.
Different modules apply this approach at different levels. The Higg FEM assesses facility-level impacts across areas including energy and GHG emissions, water, and air emissions while the Higg MSI and Product Module use life cycle assessment (LCA) methodologies to quantify material and product impacts, enabling comparison of design choices and identification of lower-impact alternatives.
Reporting is primarily based on self-assessment by companies, which input operational and production data into the system. These assessments can then undergo third-party verification to ensure data accuracy and credibility, particularly for facility-level reporting.
Current Status
The Higg Index is one of the most widely adopted sustainability assessment systems in the fashion industry, used by tens of thousands of organisations globally.
It has played a central role in standardising how environmental impacts—particularly emissions, materials, and manufacturing processes—are measured across the sector. At the same time, the methodology has faced scrutiny regarding data quality, scope, and transparency, prompting ongoing updates and reviews.
Despite these challenges, the Higg Index remains a key tool for companies seeking to quantify and manage environmental performance at scale.
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