Fifteen Years of the Higg Facility Environmental Module
Pioneering a standardized way to measure supply chain environmental impact.
Imagine buying a shirt and having no idea where it was made, who made it, or what it did to the people and places involved.
For most of the apparel industry in 2009, that was the reality. That’s the year Patagonia and Walmart decided to change it. They invited leaders from across the industry to collaboratively measure what’s good for people and the planet, in a way everyone can trust.
Businesses Test a New Global Approach to Sustainability
Driven by a desire to improve the environmental and social impact of the apparel industry, global businesses start testing how to evaluate supply chains in a standardized way. They start piloting the first version of the Higg Index 1.0, stewarded by Cascale, to run early environmental metrics of their supply chains.
Sustainability Data in Spreadsheets
The Higg Facility Environmental Module (Higg FEM) launches as a simple spreadsheet. It asks factories a set of questions about how they affect the environment: how much energy they use, what goes into the air, how they handle water and wastewater, and what happens to their waste. Before the module, those answers were scattered across bills, binders, and memory. Now they were in one place.
Chemicals come into view
For the first time, the Higg FEM added chemicals management. That matters because the substances used in dyeing and finishing can end up in rivers and in the bodies of the people who live near them. Before this, many factories didn’t track their chemicals in a consistent way, so nobody could tell which ones posed the biggest risks.
The new chemicals section meant factories could ask which substances they used, where they went, and how to manage them better. It turned a hidden problem into something a factory could see, measure, and fix.
Trust Gets a Second Look
Verification launches, giving factories a way to have their results independently confirmed. Most factories report carefully and honestly, but even careful teams can run into a meter reading that’s off, a figure entered the wrong way, or a number that had to be estimated. Verification gives everyone a second look. With it, a brand can look at a factory’s score and know someone outside the building has confirmed it.
Seeing How You Compare
Benchmarking and analytics arrived, so a factory could see how its performance compared with others and track its own progress over time. Improvement stopped being a guess. It became something a factory could measure, compare, and celebrate.
Higg FEM Aligns with the GHG Protocol
The newest version of Higg FEM aligns with the GHG Protocol, the global standard for counting greenhouse gas emissions, along with the Science Based Targets initiative and ZDHC. Those alignments matter because a factory’s numbers can now be used alongside the rules and targets companies already follow.
Measuring encourages improvement
Once a factory knows where its energy goes, it can do something about it. In 2024, facilities that completed Higg FEM on Worldly were making significant progress on energy reduction:
- 54% had an energy improvement plan
- 72% knew their highest emitting processes
- 41% had set Scope 1 and 2 targets
- 48% reported real progress toward their reduction goals
Higg FEM Reaches Well Beyond Apparel and Footwear
More than one-third of Higg FEM users in 2025 came from outside the apparel and footwear sector. Facilities that completed the assessment that year showed significant progress compared to the year before:
- 61% had an energy improvement plan
- 77% knew their highest emitting processes
- 48% had set Scope 1 and 2 targets
- 55% reported real progress toward their reduction goals
Primary Data Is the Foundation of Industry Progress
More than 45,000 facilities across 97 countries use Worldly today, and 65% of assessments are now verified by 675 active verifiers. Suppliers share their assessments more than 100,000 times a year, with each one serving an average of three brands. Fifteen years in, the Higg Facility Environmental Module has become the foundation of primary data for the consumer goods industry, enabling unmatched collaboration, progress, and global supply chain risk management and compliance for businesses worldwide.
Higg FEM Is Driving Industry Progress
Of factories using Worldly have an energy improvement plan.
Know their highest emitting processes.
Have reported real progress toward their target reduction goals.
Move from metrics to meaningful action
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