Higg is rebranding as Worldly in an effort to relaunch itself to the fashion sector and expand its product range. The move comes after the Higg Index, one of the most-used sustainability assessment tools, suspended its consumer sector activities in 2022 after some called its claims into question.
In June last year, the Norwegian Consumer Authority reported that claims about a garment sustainability which brands were advertising were actually not substantiated and felt to be misleading. The Authority said that the data used for the claims was not sufficient. Environmentalists welcomed suspension because they said the data only captured a small fraction of a product’s true lifecycleThe Sustainable Apparel Coalition, which operates the Higg MSI, insisted the data was vetted and validated but conceded that it was outdated and needed improvement.
The rebrand is partly designed to clarify the relationship between the Higg Index and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. While Higg Co, now called Worldly, aggregates the data for the index, the SAC operates the index.
Wordly is also presenting a new tool for collecting factory-level energy, water, and waste data in real-time to help brands better track their footprints over time.
