SAC “pauses” consumer-facing transparency programme
The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) has announced that it is temporarily halting its use of data from its Higg Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) as a “consumer-facing transparency programme”.
Chief executive, Amina Razvi, made the announcement in a statement on June 27.
She said it had come on the back of a demand from the Norwegian Consumer Authority that SAC member brand Norrøna end a practice of using information from the Higg MSI to present T-shirts in its range that are made from organic cotton as more sustainable than garments made from standard cotton.
Higg MSI data comes from industry averages across a range of lifecycle assessment (LCA) exercises. The Norwegian Consumer Authority decided it was unfair to consumers to apply an industry average to specific products from specific brands, which may or may not reflect the averages accurately.
“While we remain fully committed to the use of standardised data to empower better decision-making with all stakeholders,” Amina Razvi said, “we recognise the additional challenges that come from translating LCA data to consumer-facing information.”
She said the SAC would work with its partners to work out the best way of doing this and, afterwards, reactivate the programme.
Ms Razvi added that the SAC will also commission a third-party review of the Higg MSI and the methodology it uses.
Reacting to the SAC statement, the secretary to the International Council of Tanners, Dr Kerry Senior, said that leather and other natural fibres had suffered “damage” to their reputations in the eyes of brands and consumers. He added: “The damage can’t be undone but at least it is now evident that it [the MSI] is a fatally flawed metric. If the failings are true in Norway, they are true everywhere else.”
He said he hoped this interruption to the Higg MSI being applied to leather and other materials would lead to a shift. He said what he hoped would come in its wake would be “a system that properly and fully represents the environmental impact of materials and importantly, a recognition that if the data is inadequate, the assessment cannot and should not be made”.
