Higg Knowledge Point Sharing

Higg Index is a sustainable development tool and an indicator based tool for the clothing industry, aimed at assessing the environmental and social impacts of clothing and footwear products; It can enable enterprises to evaluate the types of raw materials, products, production factories, and process flows within the range of environmental and product design choices.

Higg measures environmental sustainability and social/labor performance through production practices and qualitative and quantitative issues, and promotes the implementation of improvement measures.

Higg FEM Factory Verification Process

1. The factory completes the self-assessment form, and then Post it in the Higg evaluation system to share with the customer

2. The factory must undergo Higg FEM factory verification by a second party or external third party or customer

This form of Higg evaluation requires several more steps than the previous situation, but many of the steps are the same

1. Higg system registration

This step is the same, first log in to the Higg system to complete the registration.

2. Purchase module

Firstly, the enterprise needs to purchase an FEM self-assessment module and complete the self-assessment as described in section 2.3.

Secondly, enterprises also need to purchase FEM verification and evaluation modules, namely vFEM modules, otherwise verification is not possible.

3. Fill out the Higg FEM validation factory self-assessment form

This step is also completely consistent. The factory fills out the FEM self-assessment form, which can be downloaded from offline Excel or filled out online. However, the self-assessment form must be completed by 95% or more before it can be posted on the Higg system.

4. Select Higg FEM audit agency

Choosing a Higg FEM audit institution can be conducted simultaneously with 2.3 or separately, without strict order. Enterprises can choose the audit institution on the Higg system and determine the audit date with the audit institution.

5. Conduct Higg FEM verification

After completing the previous steps, the Higg FEM verification agency selected by the enterprise will complete the verification according to the agreed date, and upload the Higg FEM verification data and report to the Higg system within the specified time.

6. Confirmation and sharing of Higg FEM validation data and reports

After the validator completes the Higg FEM validation report, the enterprise logs in to the Higg system for confirmation. Once there are no objections to the validation data, they can share it with the corresponding customers.

Higg FEM audit considerations

1. A verifier is only qualified to make compliance judgments on the data and documents provided by the factory, and cannot provide results on the spot stating whether the factory meets or does not meet a certain requirement.

2. Higg only provides validation results, but there is no judgment on whether the factory has passed or failed validation, which means that the report will not display either pass or fail. It's just a bunch of data there, and a total score is the clearest and most clear.

3. If the factory has doubts about the verifier's data validation results, it can appeal directly. The appeal process and corresponding time points are as follows:

During the closing meeting between the verifier and the factory

Between verification agency and factory - within 48 hours

Between the Verification Supervision Organization (VOO), Verification Agency, and Factory - within 72 hours