HIGG INDEX VERIFICATION

Driving Collaboration on Sustainability

As anindependent third-party inspection and certification audit organization with APSCA (Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors) membership qualification, Bureau Veritas provides comprehensive environmental, social responsibility and sustainable development project solutions.

About Higg Index?

Higg Index is a standard suite of self-assessment tools that enables brands, retailers, and facilities of all sizes to measuresocialand environmental sustainabilityperformance. Higg Index Facility environmental module (Higg FEM) is a sustainabilityassessmenttoolforsuppliertoevaluatetheir environmental performance and informs them the strengths and weaknesses of sustainable development. Thus, driving business value throughout the value chain by presenting opportunities for cost-savings and innovation, and catalyzes sustainabilityeducationandcollaboration.

About Cascale

Cascaleisa global,non-profit allianceof300 leading consumer goods brands, retailers, manufacturers, sourcing agents, service providers, trade associations, NGOs, and academicinstitutions.Cascalemembers represent everylink of the global value chain for apparel, footwear, and textiles; home furnishings; sporting and outdoor goods; bags and luggage. Cascale, formerly known as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition，not only owns and sustains the Higg Index, but has developed a unified strategy aimed at transforming the industry.

Cascale

The Higg FEM is Designed to

·Measure and quantify the sustainability impacts of a facility

Reduceredundancy in measuring and reporting sustainabilityperformance

Drive business value through reducing risk and uncovering efficiencies · Create a common means and language to communicate sustainability to stakeholders

Facilities should complete and publish a Higg FEM SelfAssessment annually, which should typically be completed between Jan.1 and Apr.30 of each year and measures performance for the most recent calendar year (e.g., the 2023 Module measures performance for calendar year 2023). The SelfAssessment Module is recommended to be released by Apr.30. After Apr.30, the facility can only release the module at one time andcannotunpublishorre-edit it.

Between Jan.1 and Dec.31 of the reporting year, facilities can validate their self-assessments, and validated modules should be releasedbyDec.31.

Benefits and Rewards

Identify risks and opportunities for sustainable development in factories and supplychains

·Enhance users' understanding of sustainability impacts and gain a baseline forevaluatingplantperformance

·Facilitate communication and collaboration among stakeholders through a commonsustainabilityassessmentstandard

·Provide a practical roadmap and blueprint for continuous improvement.

7 Sections to Measure

Environmental management system
Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Wateruse Wastewater Emissions to Air Waste Management
Chemical management

Competitive Benefits You Will Get From Verification

·Avoid lost: Identification of sustainability opportunities and risks in supplier chain to win and avoid lost, providing a roadmap for improvement Reduce costs:Reduction in redundancy of assessments thusreduce costs and audit fatigue to help focus on performance improvement instead Influencedecision:A standardself-assessment creates commonlanguageto communicate sustainability and influence sourcing decisions to collaborate; influencepurchasing decisionstobuyyourproducts Brand image: Building a healthy public brand image with transparency via verification
Learn and build: Educate one to learn more about sustainability impacts and benchmark performance overtime.Build internal confidence in results and build insightful strategyforfuturedevelopment

Services We Offer

·Onsite Verification:Verifier conduct a comprehensive check of the factory's environmental performance through document review， data verification, on site visits and employee interviews, so as to ensure that the assessment results are objective, accurate and can be publicly shared.
· Offsite Verification: Verifier assess the factory's submitted environmental data and documents online according to the Higg FEM standard,offering improvement directions and suggestions.The results can be shared with customers via the factory's worldly account but can't be publiclyreleased.
·Training: As a Cascale recognized training body, BV offers online/onsite training tohelp client understand theHigg FEM assessment standard and process, enhance the environmental management knowledge and skills, complete self-assessment accurately,identifyimprovementopportunities and drive sustainable development.

About Verification Process

1. Self-assessment: Factory needs to complete online selfassessment. Registration on Worldly platform is required. For verification, purchase vFEM is required.
2. Booking: Fill in and submit the booking form.
3.Prepayment: BV would send PI to collect payment.
4. Select BV: Select BV as verifier body and confirm the verificationschedule.
5.Select verifier.
6. Verification: BV develops performance plan after verification is complete
7. Post report: Report would be uploaded to the platform in 5 working days. Once uploaded, the factory could choose to post theverifiedresultornot.
8. Invoice: After report released, BV invoicing team would issue the official invoice to theverificationrequestor.

TRAINER BOD..

Interested to learn more about whatwehavetooffer?Pleaserefer to our fact sheets, white papers and more on our dedicated Environmental Sustainability page.

About Us

Bureau VeritasConsumer Products Servicesprovides testing,inspection and audits, certification and advisory services to assist businesses in validating and delivering consumer and technology products.

We help our clients across all industries to address increasing market and industry challenges and to improve their performance in quality, health and safety, environment protection andsocial responsibility.

Witha global network,we assistbusinesses toproduce safe,qualityand sustainable productsandgainfastermarket accesswhilemitigatingrisksof recalls and returns.

Interested?

Would you like to learn more about our services?

Contact us today!

cps.bureauveritas.com CSR&Sustainability@bureauveritas.com