"You cannot manage what you don't measure" is a maxim often mentioned when discussing sustainable business practices. Over the last several years, we've relied on a series of industry tools and platforms to measure the impact of our material selection, ensure fair and safe labor practices in the factories we work with, calculate the impact of producing our finished goods in those factories, and benchmark our improvement along the way. This blog article highlights some of the tools we use and how we implement their data to define and evolve our sustainability goals. The Higg Index Developed by a coalition of brands, retailers, and manufacturers and launched in 2011, the Higg Index is the most widely used standardized measurement framework within the outdoor apparel industry. This framework allows us to assess the environmental and social impacts of our products and processes by providing detailed insights into various aspects of sustainability, including materials sourcing, energy use, water consumption, and labor practices, and identify areas of improvement and implement effective strategies to reduce our overall environmental footprint. Today, more than 24,000 organizations around the world use the Higg Index tools.One of the key benefits of the Higg Index is its ability to facilitate transparency and accountability within our supply chain. This transparency not only helps build trust and credibility with our customers but also encourages continuous improvement and innovation. By benchmarking our performance against industry standards and our peers, we can set ambitious yet achievable goals, track our progress over time, and make informed decisions to enhance our sustainability initiatives.Additionally, the Higg Index promotes collaboration across the outdoor industry by providing a common language and set of metrics for sustainability. This collaborative approach fosters a culture of shared responsibility and collective action as we work together to address common challenges and drive systemic change. By leveraging the Higg tools, we can contribute to broader industry efforts to create a more sustainable and equitable global economy. In this way, the Higg Index serves as a vital resource for Outdoor Research to reduce our impact on the environment and society. Worldly Worldly is a digital platform that hosts numerous sustainability assessments and methodologies, including exclusive license rights to the Higg Index, that equip brands with powerful supply chain data to benchmark and improve their sustainability efforts. In recent years, Worldly has expanded its capabilities with more advanced analytics, reporting, performance tracking tools, and complimentary data and methodologies from trusted third parties. The Higg Tools We Use Higg Material Sustainability Index (MSI): The MSI contains data from numerous Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) conducted on thousands of material fibers. These LCAs are meticulously reviewed and scrutinized before the data is allowed onto the MSI platform. They provide data on each material production stage, from raw fiber sourcing (cradle) to garment finishing to recycling and disposal (grave). We use this tool to 'build' our products and understand the impacts our material choices have on the environment. (Greenhouse gas emissions, water use, chemical analysis, etc...). Most brands do not have the capacity or the money to run full LCAs on every fiber/product they use, and the MSI enables us to make much more accurate in-house decisions and measurements. Facility Environmental Module (FEM): Each year, Tier 1 and Tier 2 factories are third-party audited for energy use, water consumption, waste management, chemical management, and greenhouse gas emissions, and the results are shared on the FEM platform. We use this data to calculate the impact of producing our finished goods (cut and sew)–one of the largest contributors to our GHG footprint. Ideally, factories will annually improve their practices, tracking, and reporting across numerous environmental factors, helping brands and retailers have better conversations about high-impact areas and solutions. Facility Social and Labor Module (FSLM): The FSLM is like the FEM but focuses on social and labor ethics and conduct. Our sourcing team uses the results of this audit when choosing the suppliers and factories to partner with by assessing how workers are treated at those facilities. These comprehensive audits cover topics ranging from recruitment, wages, working hours, health and safety, management systems, and more. Brand and Retail Module (BRM): This was the first Higg/Worldly module to be developed and includes assessments around product design, sourcing practices, and social/environmental impacts. We have completed the BRM annually since 2019, helping us to structure and maintain a robust corporate responsibility program and enabling us to benchmark and track our impact against our industry peers year over year. Product Module (PM): The Higg Product Module helps us assess product impacts and develop more sustainable products consistently across industries. The PM calculates five environmental impacts generated across a product's lifecycle (cradle-to-grave). As we continue to drill deeper into the impacts of our products, our strategy involves conducting independent LCAs to gather and own primary data. The PM allows us to house and organize this information as we improve in-house analysis. Like the MSI, but on a more detailed product level, the PM identifies impacts of manufacturing, packaging, logistics, retail, product care, duration of service, and end of use over a product's lifecycle.   In Summary "The Worldly platform and Higg suite of tools positions Outdoor Research to more confidently measure our impact to people and planet by providing quality secondary data and allowing us to confidently report our company's sustainability goals and progress. By sharing information with brands and factories around the world, we all work toward better data quality, transparency and impact." - Haylee Utt, OR Sustainability Specialist As we continue measuring, benchmarking, and digging into details to improve and evolve our processes, material selection, and supply chain partners, the importance of the Worldly and Higg Index toolkit will remain critical to achieving our ambitious sustainability goals. By helping us assess our products' and processes' environmental and social impacts, this toolkit ensures transparency and accountability within our supply chain while providing data-driven insights, enabling us to set goals, track progress, and foster industry-wide collaboration for a more sustainable global economy.
