Sudden name-change for Higg Co is no surprise
17/05/2023
In an announcement on May 16, Worldly said that it had been set up as long ago as 2019. It described itself as a public-benefit technology company designed to be a platform for hosting the Higg Index. In the May 16 announcement, Worldly said it was “the exclusive licensee of the Higg Index”.
SAC’s website lists press releases for 2019, but does not include an announcement on the setting up of Worldly. What it does make clear is that, in 2019, SAC launched Higg Co as a spin-off and Jason Kibbey, who had been SAC chief executive since 2014, moved to become chief executive of Higg Co. Mr Kibbey is now chief executive of Worldly and his profile on LinkedIn says he has been since 2019.
What seems most likely, then, is that Worldly is simply a new name for Higg Co, although the May messages fail to spell that out.
On May 16, Jason Kibbey said: “A generational shift is under way in the sustainability of consumer goods, and businesses need better data on their environmental and social impacts to improve performance and compliance.” He went on to describe Worldly as “the planet’s most comprehensive impact intelligence platform”, and as “home of the Higg Index and more”.
The SAC website does not include the May 16 announcement; in fact, the website does not mention Worldly once. Amina Razvi, who took over the running of SAC from Jason Kibbey in 2019, first as executive director and, from 2022, as chief executive, published a blog post on May 16, devoted to ‘30 x 30’, the goal to put aside 30% of the world for nature by 2030. She mentioned the Higg Index, but even here did not name Worldly or attempt to explain the change in the set-up.
If SAC were intent on putting some distance between itself and the Higg Index, it would come as little surprise.
In October 2022, the Dutch and the Norwegian consumer authorities, both of whom had previously issued warnings to high-profile brands and retailers over environmental claims, jointly published new guidance to the textile industry.
In this new guidance, they focused specifically on clothing companies’ use of the Higg Index in presenting their claims about the environmental credentials of their products and the materials they are made from and raised a number of objections over the way the Higg has worked until now.
Image: Kemal Alkan via Unsplash.
Share this story:
