The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) and Higg Co have released the latest version of the Higg Materials Sustainability Index (Higg MSI) which can calculate the environmental impacts of millions of possible material manufacturing variations.
Now available on the Higg Index platform Higg.org, the Higg MSI enables brands, retailers, and manufacturers to compare material life-cycle assessment data and make more sustainable design and materials choices. In this new version release, the Higg MSI now offers an enhanced user experience, a new database, and updated scoring.
“The release of the updated Higg MSI is a big milestone for the industry because it provides more accurate and detailed information, allowing users to dive more deeply into material assessment,” says Amina Razvi, executive director of the SAC. “With increased use and shared data, the Higg MSI will continue to evolve and become even stronger, helping to drive collective action.”
The Higg MSI measures five environmental impacts: chemistry, global warming potential, nutrient pollution in water, water scarcity, and fossil fuel depletion. It also features more than 80 example materials. Example materials represent a material commonly used in the industry such as cotton, leather, polyester, nylon, jute, silk, and metals.
Companies can assess the impact of different materials as they select which ones to use for their products, with the Higg MSI capturing how the five environmental impacts would change based on different raw material or production process options, such as switching from batch dyeing to continuous dyeing.
Higg MSI users can also customise how their companies uniquely produce materials and use Higg MSI data to help them make more sustainable choices.
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By GlobalData“There is a growing conversation about sustainable materials, but it’s difficult to know what it actually means for people and the planet and whether it’s really trustworthy information,” says Julie Brown, SAC director, Higg Index – Higg Product Tools. “Our goal is to pull together the most robust and tested data sources available and translate complex metrics into digestible and actionable guidance to have a positive impact at scale.”
Key updates to the 2020 Higg MSI include:
- New interface offering an enhanced user experience
- Migration from a standalone website to the Higg.org platform, alongside other Higg tools
- Addition of a packaging library, comparisons, and customisation
- Addition of a trims and components library, comparisons, and customisation
- Ability to customise transportation distances and modes between processing steps
- Ability to assign chemistry certifications at the process level
- New background LCA database (GaBi)
- New water scarcity assessment methodology (AWARE)
- Updated chemistry scoring methodology and new chemistry data
- Inclusion of biogenic carbon and water consumption in metadata
- New process level loss rates, ensuring material assessments include consideration for process efficiencies
The SAC, a global industry coalition that is standardising social and environmental sustainability performance measurement, is constantly improving and expanding the Higg MSI. Higg MSI users and materials experts are encouraged to contribute material data to the tool’s growing library of materials. Once data is submitted, it is reviewed, verified, and scored by third-party experts.
