TAL Apparel is a proud member of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, a nonprofit coalition of consumer industry stakeholders from across the value chain coming together to align on sustainability performance tools and objectives. The SAC and its members developed the Higg Index, a suite of tools to measure the sustainability performance of brands, manufacturers, and the products they make.
Since 2013 TAL Apparel has used the Higg Facility Environment Module (FEM) to measure and benchmark our environmental sustainability performance across our factories against industry best practices, enhance our environmental management tools and procedures. The Higg FEM assesses factory performance across seven impact categories from management practices, setting targets, and measuring achievements. You can learn more about the Higg FEM here: Higg Facility Tools – Sustainable Apparel Coalition
Each year TAL’s factories assess themselves against the Higg Facility Environment Module (FEM). In 2020, we set ourselves a target of achieving an average score of 80 across our factories by end of 2022. After finalizing our 2022 Higg FEM verified scores, we are proud to announce that we achieved our target. Out of 100 points, our factories achieved an average of 80.
The upcoming years will see an update to the Higg Index FEM from 3.0 to 4.0. The updated version of the Higg FEM will push the industry to new sustainability best practices. While we expect our score to drop as we update our practices and performance to meet even higher standards, our long-term goal by end of 2025 would be to reach an average of 80 of 100 points across our factories. This is only an estimate for now because the updated scoring for Higg 4.0 is not yet finalized.
