Higg introduces social benchmarking solution for the consumer goods industry

Sustainability insights platform, Higg, has launched new social and labor performance criteria for consumer products production.

Higg claims to be the first company to provide comprehensive performance measurement for industrial facilities, including carbon, water, waste, and now working conditions.

Because most environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) solutions only provide benchmarks on certain environmental factors, Higg claims that its advancement provides a more holistic means for firms to improve their effectiveness.

Higg users can analyze the environmental and social effects inside their own value chain as well as against peers in the industry. This will provide organizations with a new perspective on their own performance and will inform strategic decisions to accomplish sustainable targets.

Janet Mensink, executive director of the SLCP, said that to improve working conditions in the fashion sector, businesses need data they can trust, and Higg is assisting with this by providing industry access to the Social & Labor Convergence Program’s Converged Assessment Framework (CAF). The CAF is a commonly used technique for reducing audit fatigue and increasing facility ownership of their social and labor statistics. Higg will assist customers to assess how their efforts compare against others and will spotlight opportunities for improvement.

Higg users can now create comprehensive ESG programs based on data from their facilities or compare them to others in Higg’s network. The resulting data aids in the identification of underperforming regions and the development of improvement programs. Businesses can then track their success as they make improvements. Additionally, filtering of production facilities by attributes such as industry or nation is offered to assist businesses in managing factory compliance based on country-specific labor standards.

The update assists the consumer goods industry in meeting market expectations by incorporating social impact data alongside environmental metrics for a more complete picture of performance across the entire value chain.

Jason Kibbey, CEO of Higg, said that they’re innovating for a world where everything is manufactured with the least amount of environmental damage and the greatest amount of social benefit. Businesses must grasp the implications throughout their value chain in order to do so. Investing in simply one or two areas will not get them to where they need to go. Benchmarking is a critical component to resolving this issue. Compared to peers in the industry and finding specific areas that require attention provides businesses with the information they need to accelerate their success.