FEM Foundations

1. FEM4.0 Introductory Training

2. An Introduction to Higg FEM

3. FEM Foundations

4. Prepare for the Higg FEM

5. Prepare for FEM Rollout

6. Complete the FEM

7. Understand FEM Results

8. Verify your Higg FEM (vFEM)

FEM Question By Question Guidance

FEM Foundations

FEM Foundations is a set of foundational questions for businesses beginning to measure the environmental impact of their manufacturing. You can only do the FEM Foundations assessment if you have never completed a FEM assessment before. The purpose of FEM Foundations is providing a light-weight assessment to help you get started measuring your environmental impact and tracking mitigation practices, and prepare you for doing a full FEM. 

FEM Foundations does not provide a score and does not include benchmarking. FEM Foundations does include:

  • Areas of Opportunities report
  • CSV download with question answers
  • Verification of results

How does FEM Foundations work:

FEM Foundations works similarly to Higg FEM. A self-assessment of FEM Foundations must be completed and posted before verification can begin. Once a module is posted and shared, your shared account will be able to view your completed module.  

A facility should complete and post either one FEM Foundations or one Higg FEM in the same FEM cadence year.  Unlike Higg FEM, FEM Foundations does not have a reporting period, it is available all year round, and it measures performance from the most recent 12-months.  For example, if the facility is completing FEM Foundations in May 2023, FEM Foundations measures performance from May 2022 to April 2023).  

Once you have purchased the FEM or Foundations module, make sure to choose the right module to be allocated to your account:

Once the module has been allocated, the user is redirected to the FEM Foundations dashboard, which resembles the FEM-dashboard. 

For guidance on FEM Foundations please see the Appendix A. FEM Foundations guide that can be found here.

Note: Not all facilities are eligible to complete FEM Foundations. This assessment only applies to new facility accounts, meaning those facilities have not completed Higg FEM previously.  Facilities that had completed a Higg FEM in previous cadence(s) or currently completing Higg FEM in the reporting year will not have accessibility to the FEM Foundations.  

How does verification work for FEM Foundations:

Verification on the FEM Foundations has the same workflow and verification protocol as the Higg FEM. While the majority of the questions in FEM Foundations are identical to questions in Higg FEM, thus verification criteria will be the same for those questions.  There are some exceptions.  For those questions that are not identical, please refer to the verification guidance in this guide. 

For general Verification protocol, please refer to this guidance on the Verification Program.