The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) has launched Higg Co., a public benefit company that will develop the technology that delivers the Higg Index. The Higg Index is a suite of sustainability assessment tools used globally by brands, retailers and manufacturers to measure the environmental and social performance of a company or product.

"The SAC's vision of an industry that produces no unnecessary environmental harm and has a positive social impact remains as vital as when we started," said SAC interim executive director Amina Razvi. "Spinning out the technology capability enables both organisations to focus on accelerating progress towards that vision."

The SAC, which was founded in 2009, will continue to focus on the multi-stakeholder collaboration that drives social and environmental sustainability measurement and improvements in the apparel, footwear and textile industry.

Higg Co. will be led by former SAC CEO Jason Kibbey and its headquarters are in San Francisco, CA. In addition to hosting Higg Index tools, Higg Co. will also offer custom solutions to allow companies to integrate measurable data directly into their internal systems, better enabling decisions throughout the enterprise. 

"With the spinout of Higg Co., we will provide the industry the trusted technology it needs to be able to implement the Higg Index at scale," said Jason Kibbey, CEO of Higg Co. "Our customers rely on strong technology to drive the social and environmental improvements that will reshape the apparel and footwear industry, and other industries in the future."

Higg Co. is majority-owned by the SAC and funding is provided by impact investment firms Titan Grove and Buckhill Capital, and Sanjeev Bahl of Saiburg B.V.

"As a for profit, well-capitalised company, Higg Co. will facilitate a faster and more efficient rollout of the Higg Index across global value chains to drive transformative, lasting change," said Jeff Tannenbaum, chairman of Titan Grove.  

"You can't manage what you can't measure, and the Higg Index provides the standardization and measurement the industry needs to drive lasting change," added Henrik Jones, General Partner of Buckhill Capital.

"Patagonia and Walmart co-founded the SAC ten years ago with the proposition that standardized measurement of sector impact that was deep and transparent would unleash forces in the marketplace that would incentivize companies to reduce environmental impact and increase social justice," said Rick Ridgeway of Patagonia. "At Patagonia we're looking forward to working with Higg Co. as a customer to scale positive impact throughout the entire value chain." (RR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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