SAN FRANCISCO/AMSTERDAM — September 27, 2021 — Today, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), a global multi-stakeholder nonprofit alliance for the consumer goods industry, along with its technology partner Higg, have welcomed Tommy Hilfiger as the latest brand partner to launch the Higg Index Sustainability Profiles. The profiles, which feature data-backed environmental claims, provide customers with unprecedented visibility into a product’s impact and deliver a unified approach for transparency in the fashion industry.
Tommy Hilfiger, which is owned by PVH Corp, will be adding Higg Index Sustainability Profiles to a selection of their products as part of a pilot program in partnership with Amazon, the SAC and Higg. The pilot, featuring 247 products, will run for six weeks on Tommy Hilfiger’s owned EU ecomm. The products will also be added to Amazon’s Climate Pledge Friendly program. In line with Tommy Hilifger’s vision to create fashion that wastes nothing and welcomes all, this pilot marks a definitive step in the brand’s journey to communicate more transparently with its customers.
“The SAC is proud to welcome Tommy Hilfiger as the newest brand partner to join the Higg Index transparency program. This marks a major milestone in the brand’s sustainability journey and we are thrilled to collaborate with them. We look forward to working with the team as we continue to expand the program to include environmental and social impact providing a consistent way for brands, retailers, and manufacturers to share sustainability performance information with their customers. Sharing this information is necessary to help customers make better and more informed decisions and drive transparency at scale.” said Amina Razvi, executive director of the SAC.
Transparency is critical to driving systemic change for a healthier planet and overcoming greenwashing, which continues to be a serious problem in the fashion industry. As public interest in sustainability grows, consumers and governments are demanding greater accountability and transparency from brands. France, for example, recently passed a bill that will require businesses to feature carbon labels on their products, setting the expectation that businesses take responsibility for their environmental impacts, starting with disclosure.
“Real, tangible change in the fashion industry cannot be accomplished alone. Our belief has always been that industry partnership and collaboration is essential to creating the future of fashion that we all very much want to see. We are proud to be a partner of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and excited to pilot the Higg Index Sustainability Profile on our European ecommerce sites, to support our consumers on their journey to shop more sustainably. Transparency is essential in our vision to create fashion that Wastes Nothing and Welcomes All and we’re excited to expand this program in the coming seasons,” said Esther Verburg, executive vice president, Sustainability, Business & Innovation, Tommy Hilfiger Global.
“Tommy Hilfiger is setting a great example for the fashion industry through its commitment to transparency,” said Higg CEO Jason Kibbey. “By using contextualized data to back up sustainability claims, it’s taking an important step to provide greater visibility into the environmental impact of its products while also strengthening its relationship with customers.”
“This new approach to transparency from the SAC community is a long awaited and brave initiative that could provide the systemic change the industry has needed to make for some years. As with all new initiatives, the SAC Transparency Programme is not perfect, but the foundations are there for the programme to be ground-breaking. But to achieve its potential, SAC needs to clearly define the 10 year roadmap for the programme and act with confidence to deliver to that roadmap,” said Dr. Mark Summer, a lecturer in Sustainable Fashion, University of Leeds, United Kingdom.
The SAC and Higg launched the first phase of the transparency program, starting with a product’s material environmental impacts, in May, with Amazon, H&M and Norrona as the first brand partners to participate. By 2023, the program will expand to incorporate social data from facilities, becoming the first holistic system for communicating sustainability performance across a product’s lifecycle.
After spending a decade developing and launching the groundbreaking suite of Higg Index tools, offering credible sustainability data, the SAC believes using a common language and leveraging consistent, systematic measurement is critical for improved performance at scale. While the Higg Index tools continue to evolve with the latest science and technology, the tools are currently the most comprehensive and widely adopted value chain sustainability measurement tools in the industry. As a result, the Higg Index sets a solid foundation to unlock transparency at scale and spur collective action towards industry transformation.
Posted September 27, 2021
Source: The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC)/Higg
