An Introduction to FEM

Higg Facility Environmental Module

Use the FEM to assess environmental impact of product manufacturing at facilities – from water use, to waste management, to chemical and energy use – in order to identify strengths and uncover areas for improvement.

Value of Higg FEM

This tool measures and quantifies the sustainability impacts of a facility. The Higg FEM will also reduce redundancy, reduce risk by way of uncovering inefficiencies, and create a common language to communicate sustainability to stakeholders.

Impacts Measured

The Higg FEM standardizes how facilities can measure and evaluate their yearly environmental performance. This tool provides a clear picture of the environmental impact that a manufacturer and its facilities are having upon the environment and the world as a whole. The Higg FEM helps manufacturers, brands, and retailers identify and prioritize opportunities for performance improvements.

Higg FEM Assesses:

  • Environmental Management System
  • Energy/Greenhouse Gas Emissions
  • Water
  • Waste
  • Wastewater
  • Air Emissions
  • Chemicals Management

Scoring

The scoring system behind the Higg FEM is designed to drive behavior change within the supply chain. Built on a powerful three-tier structure of good/better/best in regard to your facility’s environmental impact, FEM provides a facility an overall score out of 100 across the seven impact areas measured. Each impact area also receives a section score to help you quickly identify improvement opportunities.

Verification

Higg FEM verification confirms that you understood and answered your facility’s self-assessment correctly. Verification ensures data captured on the Higg platform can be trusted by external stakeholders. Click here to learn more about the Higg FEM verification process.

Transparency

The FEM provides manufacturers, retailers, and brands with the most accurate reflection of their company’s environmental footprint. Facilities may use the FEM Communications Toolkit to share verified FEM scores and performance insights with external stakeholders, including business partners, NGOs, and prospective customers in company reports, their websites, and on social media. Using the FEM Communications Toolkit is a reflection of a facility’s commitment to sustainability and sharing trusted, verified information with stakeholders.

To learn more about the Higg FEM Communications Toolkit, click here.

Additional Features

Facility Foundations

Facility Foundations is ideal for manufacturers, brands, and retailers to assess the environmental sustainability readiness of facilities in their extended value chain. Facility Foundations quickly assesses a facility’s readiness to start on a more comprehensive environmental sustainability journey. Facilities can share Facility Foundations data with brand and retail value chain partners to efficiently identify sustainability improvement and strategic investment opportunities.

The assessment consists primarily of the Level One questions in the Higg Facility Environmental Module (Higg FEM) assessment. Facility Foundations is an entry point to the Higg Facility Tools, which are comprehensive environmental and social sustainability assessments for global facilities.

To learn more about Facility Foundations, click here.

Benchmarking

With the FEM benchmarking feature, you can set a performance baseline to  compare your facility’s performance year over year, helping you identify performance hotspots and track improvement over time. Robust analytics help you understand your Higg data and can inform your sustainability strategy. You can also compare your sustainability performance to other companies like yours and see how your sustainability performance compares to global and regional averages.