The Higg Index: a sustainability benchmark for fashion brands

The Higg Index is a suite of standardised tools that measures the environmental and social impact of products and facilities across the apparel and footwear value chain. It is now owned by Cascale, the membership organisation formerly known as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), and is delivered through Worldly, the data platform formerly called Higg Co. Understanding this structure matters, because much older content still refers only to the SAC.

This article explains what the Higg Index measures, how its modules work, and how fashion brands use it to improve supply-chain performance.

What is the Higg Index?

The Higg Index is a set of measurement tools that assess a company's environmental, social and labour impacts across the value chain, including product design, manufacturing, logistics and retail. It provides a common framework to:

1. Benchmark environmental performance: assess water use, energy, emissions, waste and chemical management.
2. Evaluate social and labour practices: review working conditions, wages and worker engagement.
3. Inform decisions: guide more responsible material choices, sourcing and production methods.

Who runs the Higg Index: SAC, Cascale and Worldly

The governance changed in 2023 and 2024, and the terminology is often confused:

• Cascale is the non-profit that owns the Higg Index tools. The Sustainable Apparel Coalition rebranded as Cascale in February 2024 to reflect a wider membership beyond apparel.
• Worldly is the technology platform that hosts the tools. Higg Co. rebranded as Worldly in 2023, and the Higg Index is now available exclusively through it.
• The Higg Index tools themselves kept their names. Cascale stepped back from the consumer-facing Higg Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) after Norwegian regulators raised greenwashing concerns about how its data was used in marketing.

The main Higg Index modules

Facility modules

• Facility Environmental Module (Higg FEM): covers energy, water, wastewater, air emissions, waste and chemical management at manufacturing sites.
• Facility Social & Labor Module (Higg FSLM): assesses labour practices, health and safety and worker engagement, built on the SLCP Converged Assessment Framework.

Brand and Retail Module (Higg BRM)

This module evaluates how brands and retailers manage sustainability across their operations, upstream and downstream, covering product design, packaging, distribution and management practices.

Product Module (Higg PM)

The Product Module supports life cycle assessment of individual products, from raw-material extraction to end of life, helping brands identify where the largest impacts occur, such as water use in cotton farming or energy in manufacturing.

Why the Higg Index matters

1. Comparability: a standardised system makes performance more comparable across brands and suppliers.
2. Continuous improvement: repeated assessment encourages companies to set and refine science-based targets.
3. Regulatory readiness: as rules such as the EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and the Digital Product Passport advance, structured impact data becomes increasingly valuable.
4. Credibility: using a recognised framework signals genuine commitment, provided results are verified rather than used loosely in marketing.

How to implement the Higg Index

1. Self-assessment: gather baseline data on resource use, social metrics and supply-chain practices.
2. Prioritise hotspots: use scores to find the most material issues, such as a facility's water consumption.
3. Set targets: establish measurable goals and assign them to cross-functional teams.
4. Engage suppliers: share goals with supply-chain partners to align on materials, labour and resource use.
5. Verify and disclose: seek third-party verification to lend credibility and report transparently.

Challenges and considerations

• Data quality: collecting accurate, verifiable data across diverse supply chains is demanding.
• Supplier capacity: some suppliers lack the training or systems to meet data requirements.
• Resource constraints: smaller brands may find thorough assessment time-consuming and costly.
• Communication risk: Higg data describes relative performance and must not be over-stated in consumer claims, a lesson from the MSI controversy.

Verified examples

• Levi Strauss & Co.: uses Higg tools alongside its Water<Less programme, which the company reports has saved billions of litres of water in denim finishing since 2011.
• Brands and retailers across fast fashion and premium segments use the Higg BRM to benchmark and improve performance, contributing to industry-wide data sharing through Cascale and Worldly.

The future of the Higg Index

Cascale continues to update the tools, with a refreshed Higg FEM released in 2025, and is aligning them with emerging regulation and concerns such as microplastics, circular economy models and biodiversity. For context on the organisation behind it, see our article on the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and Cascale.

To measure the footprint of your own products beyond the fashion sector, explore Manglai's product footprint software.