1. PM Basics

What does the Higg Product Module cover?

The Product Module allows for a range of functionalities, allowing users to make informed choices about products, including:

• Side-by-side product comparisons, with the ability to see where impacts are coming from.
• Ability to create a Bill of Materials and see the effects of switching materials and material amounts
• Ability to add processing details and see the effects of different manufacturing decisions in product assembly
• Ability to identify retail and online distribution impacts, including inbound and outbound transportation
• Visualize environmental impacts of alternative care such as machine wash at cooler temperature or line drying
• Ability to include repairability attributes and determine the durability of a product based on performance testing data
• Access to source and methodology information
• Ability to create and download a product datasheet that summarizes the product processes and impacts for brands, retailers, and customers
• Excel data exports for product impacts

How long will it take to assess a product with the Higg Product Module?

The time required to assess a product with the Product Module will depend on the complexity of the product’s Bill of Materials, the complexity of the Finished Goods Manufacturing processes, and the amount of different packaging materials for online and retail sales. The sections Logistics, Retail, Product Care, and End of Use have defaults that facilitate the assessment.

The time required will also depend on what information you have already collected and prepared, such as customized materials in the MSI. The times given below assume that customized materials have already been made in the MSI. The time estimates for making these materials can be found in the Higg MSI How to Higg. Users who have access to the information required to assess a product will find that it takes only 10 to 30 minutes per product; however, the time to collect the needed information may take significantly longer.

Who should my team engage in using the Higg Product Module?

The information required to complete a Higg Product Module assessment may require you to work with different teams.

The first step is to fill in the Overview Info, which requires product name, type and category, as well as distribution information. To complete distribution information, brands can utilize the default values provided, or acquire data from inventory/sales reports.

The most important element is to have the right materials assessed in the Higg MSI, which will require working with internal and external resources. In order to complete the Bill of Materials, a brand will need to engage their product development team and/or sourcing and production teams to receive a full Bill of Materials with the amounts of each material that are needed to make a product. If these internal teams do not have access to the product Bill of Materials, it will be necessary to reach out to the finished goods manufacturer for assistance in gathering this information.

To complete the Finished Goods Manufacturing section, brands will likely require assistance from their finished goods manufacturers to gather the required information. For instance, when making an apparel product, it will be important to know the amount of cutting and sewing that takes place. Some of this information may also be available from internal product development teams, such as pattern makers who may be able to generate this information. Other product assembly and finishing processes may be listed in product tech packs, which the product development team can assist with.

To complete the Packaging, Logistics, and Retail sections, brands can utilize the default values provided, or work with the sales and sourcing teams.

To complete the Product Care, End of Use, and Duration of Service sections, brands can use the default values provided or work with their product development teams for more detailed information. This includes care instructions, design for repair, and product intrinsic quality. Some of this information may also be available on the product spec sheets.

2. Navigating the Higg Product Module (Higg PM)

Once you have created and activated your account:

1. Click on the “Product Tools” tab at the top of the page
2. Select “Higg Product Module” to access the Higg Product Module Dashboard

Starting from the Higg Product Module dashboard, it is possible to:

• View your usage (Allocated Items used and remaining)
• Access the Product Library
• Manage Settings
• Create new products

The usage is stated in the left corner on the dashboard. The account in the above screenshot has allocated 22 units of the total 250 units available.

3. Managing Settings

To access the Higg PM settings, click on “Settings” in the top navigation bar of the dashboard. The Settings screen allows users to customize three distinct settings related to a company’s products:

• Seasons
• Disposal Modes
• Distribution Info

Any information customized in the Settings section will automatically apply to all New Product Assessments, overriding the default settings. Updating these settings is entirely optional. Default values are provided and should only be updated if supporting documentation is available.  

Seasons

There are 4 default seasons included in the Higg PM:

• Spring
• Summer
• Fall
• Winter

A season does not need to be assigned when creating a product. However, the season can be used at a later stage for benchmarking and comparisons, so it is recommended to include seasons when possible.

In the “Seasons” menu, it is possible to add new seasons and to edit or delete the four default seasons.

To add a new season, click “Add New Season” at the bottom of the page. To edit or delete seasons, click the “Edit” or “Delete” buttons next to the name of the season to be changed.

Disposal Modes

Disposal modes define how manufacturing waste, excess inventory and samples are managed at the company level.

Disposal modes can be customized by rate and by percentage recycled/downcycled or landfilled/incinerated.

For definitions and guidance on customizing these disposal modes, please see Disposal Modes in the Higg Product Module How to Higg content guidance.

If any percentages are adjusted to reflect your company’s operations, they will apply to all future products for Finished Goods Manufacturing disposal route proxy values. To return to the system default settings, hover over a percentage and click “Reset to Default” at any time.

Distribution Info

The Distribution Info section enables users to customize information related to a company’s distribution channels. There are four distribution rates that can be adjusted:

• Percentage of product sold through your own distribution
• Of those products sold through your own distribution
• Top of Form
  • Percentage of product sold online and in store
• Bottom of Form
  • Percentage of product returns from online sales and in store sales
  • Restock rate for product returns online or in store

The rates specified in this section will impact the calculation of your logistics and retail impacts in those sections of a New Product Assessment.

Updating these settings is entirely optional. Default values are provided and should only be updated if supporting documentation is available.

Please Note:

• It is possible to customize just one of the fields or all of them.
• The “Percentage of product sold Online / In Store” fields are linked: increasing or decreasing one percentage point will automatically increase or decrease the other.

It is possible to update the same Distribution Info while performing a New Product Assessment, in the Overview Info section. However, updating Distribution Info in Settings will automatically apply to all New Product Assessments and will not need to be customized in both places.

4. Create a Custom Product

For specific information, click on the links on the below:

• Overview info
• Bill of Materials
• Finished Goods Manufacturing
• Packaging
• Logistics
• Retail
• Product Care
• End of Use
• Duration of Service
• Reviewing and Finalizing Your Product

5. Understanding the Product Library and Score

Once one or more products have been saved in the Product Library, it is possible to view impacts and other information about the product(s).

Products in the Product Library can be sorted by any of the column header categories by clicking next to a header and toggling the blue arrow that will appear to indicate ascending or descending order. These column headers are:

• Name
• Style number
• Product Category
• Any of the five Impact Areas
  • Global Warming
  • Eutrophication
  • Water Scarcity
  • Resource Depletion/Fossil Fuels
  • Chemistry
• Gross Weight
• Net Weight
• Status (this can also be filtered by Draft or Final)
• Created On (date)
• Created By (user)
• Last Edit (date)

Scroll to the right to see the rest of the table appear.

Product impacts can be viewed in four different ways:

• Absolute Impacts or Per Use Impacts
• Aggregated view or Detailed view

In any of these four views, there is the additional option to show product impacts with Alternative Care scenarios applied.

Absolute Impact View or Per Use impacts (aggregated view)

The Absolute Impact view can be accessed by toggling the “Absolute Impacts” button at the top of the table header. This will show impacts over the duration of the product’s life.

The Per Use Impact view can be accessed by toggling the “Per Use Impacts” button at the top of the table header. This will show impacts per each use over the course of the product’s life.

Detailed View (Per Use or Absolute Impacts)

The detailed view of a product can be accessed by clicking on the “+” sign on the right hand side of each product listing row.

The detailed view shows the product’s impacts incurred in each section of the product assessment:

• Bill Of Materials
• Finished Goods Processes
• Packaging
• Logistics
• Retail
• Product Care
• End of Use

Alternative Care Scenario View

The Alternative Care scenario view can be accessed by checking the “Alternative Care” box at the top of the table header. Alternative Care impacts can be shown or hidden in any view of the Product Library (Aggregated or Detailed views, showing Per Use or Absolute Impacts).

Impact Bars

The bars are split by life cycle-stage.

Hovering over the bars will display both the impact associated with each life cycle stage  Enabling users to identify the most impactful life cycle stage, per impact category.

In this example, the most impactful life cycle stage, in terms of Eutrophication, is the logistics.

Download all product data

To download the results of the product assessment,  please click on the excel icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen.  An excel spreadsheet will then automatically download to your device.

The download contains:

• Product Impact Summary:
  • Aggregated and per use impact data
  • Total impacts
  • Impacts per life cycle-stage
• Input data per life cycle-stage (each stage has its own tab)

6. Comparing Products

Once two or more products have been saved in the Product Library, it is possible to compare the impacts of products.

To compare products, select the desired products from the Product Library by checking the boxes to the left of the product names and click on the “Compare” button on the bottom left-hand side of the screen. The “Compare” button will be activated once two or more products have been selected.

Clicking “Compare” will hide all other products. It is possible to compare products from different product categories—however, we encourage users to compare products within similar product categories to get more meaningful insights.

7. Editing and Duplicating Products

The Product Library allows for the following additional actions:

• Edit a product
• Delete a product
• Duplicate a product

All three actions can be taken regardless of whether a product is saved as Draft or as Final.

To select an action, first select a product by clicking the button to the left of the product’s name, then click the appropriate button that will appear at the bottom of the screen: “Edit Product,” “Delete Product,” or “Duplicate Product.”

Please Note:

• The “Edit Product”, “Delete Product”, and “Duplicate Product” buttons only appear once a product has been selected
• All deletions are final. There is no way to re-import a deleted product.

8. Certifications

Navigate to “Certifications” in the top left navigation bar in the Product Library to see an overview of all created products and their certifications. In this tab you can:

• Add a certificate to a product
• Delete a certificate from a product
• Edit a certificate

In the future, added certifications will allow you to make verifiable claims about your products to consumers using the “Claims”-functionality.

Add a certificate to your product

Select the product to which you want to add a certificate and click “Add certificate” on the bottom of the page. It is also possible to add certificates when doing the product assessment in the “Overview”-stage, the first step of doing a product assessment. See section 3.1.

This will open the “add certification”-window.

In this window it is possible to either pull up an existing certification or to create a new one. To pull up an existing certification, enter the name and the Certificate ID.

Select the right ID and then click next. This will pull up all the information entered of this certification.

It is also possible to create a new certification. To do this, add the Certification and the Certificate ID and click “next”. This will unfold the additional fields to enter information about the certificate. All fields are required fields:

• Certificate Name
• Certifying/issuing Body. This is the organization that has assessed your company or product and has issued the certification to you.
• Date issued
• Date expires
• Certificate files. Upload a copy of the certificate as proof.

Note: adding a certification does not affect the calculated impact of your product. This is simply an attribute to the product. In the future adding a certification will be required to make a Transparency Claim using the Higg Claims functionality that will be available in the Product Module.

There is no integration between Higg Product Module and certifying bodies or organizations, hence it is not possible to automatically pull up data from their systems and use it in the PM. Certifications always need to be added manually.

Deleting a certification

To delete a certification from a product, click the cross (“x”) next to the certification.

Note: deleting a certification will only detach the certificate from the product, it will not delete the certification from the database. It is still possible to add the same certification to a different product without having to fill out all the details again.

Edit a certificate

To make adjustments to the entered information on the certificate, click on the certificate ID.

This will open the “Add Certification”-window. In this window you change the entered information except for the certificate’s ID and the type of certificate. Changes to a certificate are made on certificate-level, not on product-level. Hence if the certificate is linked to multiple products, regardless of through which product the certificate is accessed, changes are reflected.