Higg FEM 2025 - Get ready for the assessment video (1hr 16m)

So hello, and welcome to today's session on the Higg FEM twenty twenty five, get ready for the assessment. My name is Leah Jaggars, and I'm the senior education manager here at Worldly. Today, we're gonna go over everything you need to get started in the Higg FEM and the upcoming cadence as well as other tools available to you. This session is from the perspective of a facility user who will complete the Higg FEM assessment. Before we get started, here are some logistics for this session. All attendees are muted for the duration of the webinar. There will be time for questions at the end of the presentation. So as you have them, please go ahead and submit them into the Q and A box. That'll be at the bottom of the screen. So as you think of them, so that they are captured. Any questions that I cannot get to during the presentation will be answered in a follow-up email as long as they are submitted in the Q and A box. This session is being recorded, and we will share the recording with all registrants afterwards. We have simultaneous interpretation available in Chinese and Vietnamese today, so please select your preferred language through the interpretation icon. There are also machine generated closed captions in English available through the CC icon. During this webinar, we'll cover the following. First, we'll do a general overview about what is the Higg FEM and why is it important. Then we'll go over changes to the Higg FEM this year and what that means for you. Then I'll cover how to purchase and the different subscription options available. Then I'll show you how to navigate the platform and get started with some resources. I'll also show you what you can get started on now before posting is available in January. Finally, I'll demonstrate some of the new features live, and then we'll have time for questions and answers. So don't forget to submit your questions as we go along. Before we get into the details of the Higg FEM, it's helpful to understand who Cascale and Worldly are and their relationship to the Higg Index. Cascale is the global nonprofit alliance empowering collaboration to drive equitable and restorative business practices in the consumer goods industry. They own and develop the Higg Index, which is exclusively available on Worldly, the industry's leading sustainability data insights platform. The Higg Index tools assess social and environmental performance across various aspects, such as water use, carbon emissions, and labor conditions. There is a network of over forty thousand Higg Index users today, which includes brands, retailers, manufacturers, governments, and NGOs. Together, Cascale and Worldly provide regular updates to the Higg Index to ensure they evolve to meet your needs. In short, Cascale develops the underpinning logic and the questions of the Higg FEM, and Worldly is the software platform that supports data collection and analysis for the assessment. Now, let's dive into the Higg FEM generally. To get a sense of everyone's experience level with the Higg FEM, I'm launching a quick poll. This will help me to curate this session a little bit more to who we have in this virtual space. So it's a single question poll, and all it's asking is how many times have you completed the Higg FEM assessment? I haven't yet. A couple times, three to four times, or five or more times. This will just help me to orient our session today a little bit more and to get a sense of, you know, how many other people are kind of in the same boat as you. All right. As responses are coming in, it's kind of neck and neck. That's actually really interesting. A lot of new folks, but a lot of folks have also done it. So I'll just give everybody a second more. Alright. Excellent. Thank you so much for participating. Let me go ahead and end that poll. Let me go ahead and share the results. So, as you can see, it's a very close tie. A little bit fewer on the, you know, five plus more times, but still a lot of people kind of in the same category. So no matter if you're, you know, very experienced or if you're brand new to the FEM, hopefully you'll learn something today. All right. So moving along, the Higg Facility Environmental Module, or Higg FEM, is a transformative tool developed by our partners at Cascale used to assess the environmental impact of product manufacturing at facilities. The Higg FEM paints a clear picture of a facility's environmental impacts through a series of questions. Every stage of the production process is captured through this tool, from water use to waste management to chemical and energy use. It not only uncovers hotspot areas for improvement, but also reduces redundancy, mitigates risk, and creates a common language to communicate sustainability and build trust with your business partners. Assessment or questionnaire that covers the following topics: Environmental Management Systems, Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas, Water Use, Waste Water, air emissions, waste management, and chemical management. Cascale provides detailed guidance on each section and question in the assessment where you can learn more. Each of these sections help you understand how your facility impacts your environment and also provides ideas for improvements and different programs that you can implement or participate in to improve your performance and engagement with sustainable practices. I'm sharing the updated PDF. Actually, let me find my where did my little control go? There we go. The updated PDF right now Hopefully that has like a little pop up on your screen where you can download. This is the English version. We do have fully translated versions coming soon. I will say the bulk of it, though, is very similar to last year's version. So if you do have last year's version of the guidance, a lot of that is going be very similar. We'll go over the changes this year, but do check that out. Hopefully, you can kind of see that document. There should be a little resources section at the bottom. Don't worry if you miss it during this session as well. I'll be sending this all out via email afterwards to all registrants also. All right. The Higg FEM is a combination of qualitative and quantitative data for a comprehensive overview of your environmental performance. Qualitative data in the FEM includes the environmental management systems and chemical management section, along with qualitative questions in the other sections. Quantitative data includes numerical values for energy, water, waste, wastewater, and air emissions, as well as any baselines and targets that you may have. So what do we really mean when we say quantitative data and qualitative data? Quantitative data means data captured as numbers like usage data for energy, water, and waste that are typically tracked using meters or weighing or invoices for mirror utility or similar tools. This also includes baselines and targets that you track over time, such as a three year target to reduce energy consumption by thirty percent. Qualitative data means information such as your site and permits data, your facility address, what kind of facility it is, etcetera. It also includes your business practices such as your environmental strategy, standard operating procedures, training plans, programs that you might be participating in, etc. Within each section of the FEM, there are applicability questions and then three levels of questions. Applicability questions are questions that you answer before the main section questions so that the assessment configures the rest of the questions to those that are only relevant to your facility. For example, if you do not have any owned or controlled vehicles, then you will not need to answer questions about their fuel usage. After you answer applicability questions, you move into level one questions. Level one contains questions around awareness and basic systems. Level two contains questions around baselines, targets, and improvements. And level three contains questions around leading aspirational practices. If you do not achieve level one, you are not required to answer level two and three, but you may optionally open those levels if you wish to answer additional questions voluntarily or as a requirement of a business partner. After you submit your self assessment, you will see your initial self assessment score. Each section will have a score as well as an overall score. Please note that not all levels are equally weighed when it comes to scoring. The Higg FEM weighs a level two higher than the other levels because the questions in this level are driving key performance improvement measures such as setting targets and tracking reductions. Level one is worth twenty five percent out of the one hundred total section points. Unless the applicability questions stop you at level one, then the level one is worth one hundred percent of the one hundred total section points. Level two is worth fifty percent, and level three is worth twenty five percent. Each section then is then equally weighed in the final total overall score. You can read the full scoring methodology on Cascale's website in the link that I'm sharing now. After self assessment, typically most facilities get their assessment verified, although this is optional. We recommend checking with business partners on their requirements. Verification is the process of another party reviewing the FEM assessment for completeness, accuracy, and quality assurance. Verification can be done on-site or off-site by an approved verification body, and the verifier will input their notes into the platform, which you will receive as a report for review. You can learn more about the Higg FEM verification protocol, guidance on the process, and steps to complete on Cascale's website in the resource that I'm sharing now. Now that we've learned more about what the FEM contains and general components of the assessment, here is an overview of the FEM process. First, you will review the assessment questions and gather data from various sources. This is something that you can start now, especially if this is your very first time completing the assessment. If you have used Facility Data Manager or FDM, you can review your FDM data for completeness so that you can import your quantitative data. Also during this time, you can identify any gaps in data or processes and optionally arrange additional training. And I'm sharing a link to the training bodies now as well. Then step two is completing the self assessment in the Worldly platform. If you have previously completed an FEM, you can roll forward previous responses to questions that don't really change, like your site information. If you use FDM, you can also import twelve months of your quantitative data into your FEM to save time. Either way, you can review your data for accuracy and update anything you import if you identify any errors. Once you have completed the assessment, you will post it in the platform. The next step would be if you are getting your assessment verified to arrange verification with an approved verification body. And I'm sharing a link to the verifier bodies now as well. Then you can share your self assessment or verified assessment with your business partners for requirements and deadlines. Finally, use Insights Hub understand where your facility is doing well and where you can improve. Then during the year, you can use this information and analysis to plan changes and improvements and repeat the cycle. Now that we know a bit more about the FEM, let's review the changes to the assessment methodology and the platform this year. The first update is about cadence changes. In the past, April thirtieth was the deadline for being able to un post and repost your assessment after initial posting to fix errors and make updates. The April thirtieth deadline is now a recommended deadline, but self assessments can be submitted throughout the year. It's important to note that assessments can be now be unposted for up to sixty days following your initial posting. And if you're brand new to FEM, when I say cadence, it just means kind of like a schedule of activities. But now that schedule isn't really as stringent. So basically, April thirtieth deadline is just a recommendation. However, you can start and finish the FEM later throughout the year, but do check with your business partners for their specific requirements. Now, let's review some methodology updates. Emission factors have updated. Comparability with the Higg FEM twenty twenty four is slightly affected for some energy sources, such as district heating, chilled water, and biomass, the impacts are expected to be minor for most users. Grid emission factors will also be updated based on the IEA annual grid emission factor updating cycle, as is best practice for scope two emission calculations. Next are facility type updates. Cascale has included a new facility type split for the finished product processing category. This split is in response to member and user feedback to differentiate units of measure for printing embroidery type facilities to be reported in pieces or pairs and product dying and laundering type facilities to be reported in kilograms and to accommodate the different processes. Updates and guidance is available on the HowtoHigg FEM twenty twenty five resource page, and I'm sharing I don't know if I actually have that one. Here's the summary of updates so you can learn about all of the different changes this year. Here's some more information about the facility update. Previously, finished product processing was a single category. This made it a little bit difficult for facilities that measure production in pieces to report their data accurately. With FEM twenty twenty five, finished product processing is now captured in two different categories to accommodate processes that measure their production in pieces and those that measure their production by weight in kilograms. All previous applicability that applied to the historical finished product processing facility type will still remain for both of these new facility type categories. Now, on to some verification updates. So first is verification scope. So based on some recent feedback, Cascale is pausing the verification scope expansion, and full Higg FEM verification will not be available with the Higg FEM twenty twenty five cadence. For the Higg FEM twenty twenty five cadence, verification will remain for all level one questions. For more information, I'm sharing a publication in the chat about the verification scope. Next is improvement improved person day guidance. The verification person day guidance will be updated to include specific scenarios where a minimum number of person days is required for verification. For example, where two person days are required. Additionally, the protocol will now require that verifier bodies provide itemized information and costing for certain verification aspects for all Higg FEM verification proposals or quotations. Next is time ordinance categories and categorization updates. Time ordinance is binding guidance which defines time based verification scope of Higg FEM questions. This guidance is applicable to verifiers while conducting verification. To enhance the clarity, consistency, and quality of the Higg FEM assessment and verification, Cascale has reviewed and simplified the time ordinance categorization of some questions. And finally, enhanced verification disclosures. Verifier body public profiles are now enhanced, providing visibility on VB quality scores, regional availability, overview of the active verifiers, and more. The release of the VB public profiles will be on January one, twenty twenty six. Cascale's public Higg FEM Quality Assurance Program dashboard has been revamped for better usability and incorporating significant metrics. A new section on quality investigations has been added for users to view insights on corrective action plans and verifier suspensions. And let me just double check that I didn't have another resource for that. No. So all of that, you can also access on the HowtoHigg website. So I just shared the HowtoHigg website generally, and I'll show you during the demo how you can access the verification information and what's included. All right. So next is a quick poll. So this will also help us understand, you know, what challenges are you facing? So it's a single question. What is your biggest challenge completing Higg FEM assessment? And if you're new, there's an option to choose that. So if you're not sure yet, that's totally fine. And yeah, there's also something else. So there's time constraints, personnel constraints, not exactly sure how to answer the questions, lack of internal systems, collecting data from different sources, I'm new to Higg FEM and haven't completed an assessment, or something else. All right. And just as a reminder, please go ahead and post any questions into the Q and A and not the chat just so that they're captured. I want to make sure that anything that comes through the Q and A gets captured in a report that I can then share out with everybody. It won't have, like, your information on it or anything, but just like the question and answer. But it's helpful for that to be in that specific Q and A section. So just make sure you're putting them there. All right. Awesome. So right now, it's looking like collecting data from different sources. Also, just being new, we're not sure how to answer questions is the most common. So thank you so much. We've got about half of everybody has responded. Just while other folks are responding, I'm just going to answer this one question that came through. Do we have HowtoHigg twenty twenty five in Vietnamese? Not yet. They're being fully translated right now. So the English version is out now. I will say, though, that very little has actually changed about the questions this year. So there is Vietnamese guidance for last year. I'll show you how you can access that. The fully translated guidance will be available by end of this year. So just so you know, it is coming. But if you wanted to check it out now in Vietnamese, kind of get familiar, you could check out the twenty twenty four version, which I'll show you how to do in a little bit. All right. Thank you, everyone, who answered the poll. So I'm going go ahead and end that poll and share the results. So it looks like just collecting data is the hardest part, which totally understand there's a lot of information in there. So hopefully, I can show you a few things that will help you kind of get a head start on that. And, you know, a a few different things that you might want to start thinking about now. But also just, you know, understanding how to answer the questions and some folks are new. So I'll also be showing some different resources that you have access to that'll give you a better idea of how you can like kind of dig in if you're like, really don't even know where to start either. Awesome. All right. Great. Thank you so much for answering the poll. And a lot of folks were saying, you know, there was a significant chunk that said time constraints as well. So I'm going talk about some different features that will save you some time and also give you some more time to better understand how to answer the questions and collect that data. So first off, if you have completed an FEM in the past, which is a significant majority have you have completed an FEM in the past at least once. If you have completed the FEM twenty twenty four, our roll forward feature will pre populate the qualitative. So this is going to be the non numeric or date specific data into the FEM twenty twenty five. So this will help you reduce the time to complete for the FEM twenty twenty five and speed up reporting. We do generally recommend you review anything just to review anything that pre populates, just to make sure that everything is still accurate. But if you have completed an FEM of the four point zero version, so that's going to be twenty twenty three or twenty four, that qualitative data will roll forward. In addition to that, it will also show you your previous answers to the quantitative data as well, just to give you a sense of, okay, that's like a number I'm looking for. Generally speaking, that's not going to be exactly the same year over year. So that's why we don't roll over that quantitative data from your previous FEM at least. Next, we have outlier detection. So we automatically flag values that are outliers or atypical values within the energy and water quantitative values section. So we look at individual sources, total usage, and normalized usage by production volume for the year. So especially if you have completed it in the years before, these outliers will be flagged. And this is just a way for you to double check. So you can still review. And if you're like, yes, this is accurate, you can make a note and then save it and keep going. So it's things like a trillion megajoules of energy used, things like that. Or if, you know, maybe you're tracking you intended to enter a normalized value, but you entered a total instead. And so it's like, hey, are you sure this is the right number? So that's helpful within the platform. We also have FDM import. So if you use Facility Data Manager and you have entered a year's worth of data into FDM, we'll make sure that you don't have to enter those values again. So we will import and aggregate your totals into that annual FEM assessment. This can cover up to one hundred percent of the quantitative level one questions, depending on which data a facility has put into the FDM. So, if you are using FDM, fantastic. Now's the time to kind of take a look, make sure everything's looking good. I'll talk through some of that as well during the demo on what to look for. I'll also show you on where you can access some additional resources on how to complete that import. But that should also save you some time and make sure that, you know, the efforts that you've been making throughout the year don't go to waste. And finally, we also have some performance improvements. So Worldly is continuously investing and enhancing the Higg FM experience, improving platform speed, reliability, and usability. We are committed to making sure facilities worldwide can easily complete an assessment and manage their environmental performance with confidence. For this cadence, we have significantly increased performance in key manufacturing regions across Asia who should now have a more responsive experience with lower friction. All right. And next new and exciting feature that I'm excited to introduce is the Worldly Assistant. The Worldly Assistant is an AI powered conversational chatbot trained to help you get instant, reliable guidance on all FEM users. So this is sorry, you instant, reliable guidance about the FEM assessment. This is available for all FEM users, so facilities, verifying bodies, and brands, to help you get the answers you need right within the assessment. We encourage everyone, brands included, to take a look at the Worldly Assistant within the FEM to try it out. Look for the Worldly Assistant logo under each question in the guidance section or at the right hand side of the screen. If you click this icon, the widget will open right there within the assessment. This is your personal guide to completing and verifying FEM. It's ready to explain any question, concept, or requirement. It is trained on all of our documentation. So that includes the Worldly knowledge base, the HowtoHigg website, the five hundred page full HowtoHigg guidance, and other sources like the ZDHC knowledge base. Additionally, it will use your language of choice. If you ask your question in Vietnamese or Spanish, it will respond for you in Vietnamese or Spanish. For example, let's say you're completing the chemical section and aren't sure what the difference between an RSL and an MRSL is. You can ask the assistant, what is the MRSL? And it will teach you the difference between the two and list its sources for you to review. Other examples include, how do I answer, what was your facility's volume this reporting year, or give me the total list of documents required for the Higg FEM assessment. I do want to mention that this is not replacing our support resources or the HowtoHigg guidance. This is in addition as another way to get you quick answers while you are in the middle of completing the assessment. Keep in mind, with any AI tool, it can make mistakes. The AI assists, but you should review and use your judgment as well. Please feel free to reach out to us via support if you have any questions. Next, new for this year is the Worldly Insights Hub. This is a one stop for all things insights and analytics. The Insights Hub is available to all users on the Worldly platform that collect Higg FEM data, whether you are a brand, retailer, or vendor that aggregates data from multiple facilities or an individual facility tracking and sharing your own assessment data. You can use the Insights Hub to get a simpler view of the complicated FEM answers and measure progress against industry benchmarks. Compare your performance to your peers as well as your own data year over year so that you can better understand where to make changes. Insights Hub can show you your biggest impact areas and where you could focus your resources to improve your performance. Now let's go over purchasing and subscriptions. Here are all of the facility subscription options. All facility plans include Facility Data Manager and platform access. The standard plan lets you choose either the Higg FEM or the Higg FSLM, whereas the complete plan includes both the Higg FEM and Higg FSLM. So if you plan on completing an FSLM as well next year, we recommend purchasing that subscription. There is no change to facility subscription pricing this year, and you continue to get a fifteen percent discount subscribe for two years. If you purchased a two year subscription last year that included FEM, please know you do not need to complete another purchase this year to complete your assessment. I'll talk through that a little bit more during the demonstration. I'm also sharing some more information on facility subscriptions in general right now as well. So here we see how to navigate to the subscription page, purchase a subscription, and opening the FEM assessment for the first time. I'll also show opening an assessment from an existing subscription during the demonstration. For more information about subscriptions and how to purchase, check out the resource that I just shared. And here we see submitting payment. And then you just navigate to the FEM section, and then you can click on your module and get started. Now let's go over the different resources that are available to you. We offer resources in a variety of ways so that you can learn about the Higg FEM and the Worldly platform in your preferred method. We have e learning courses available. Sorry. We have e learning courses and curriculum, live learning opportunities with language interpretation, and written resources. I'll go over a few specifics for each of these now. First, I'd like to highlight some e learning courses. All e learning courses are free and available to all Worldly platform users. Simply access the learning center from the question mark in the upper right hand corner of the platform and log in with your Worldly platform credentials. If you have any trouble accessing the e learning platform, please reach out to the support team at Worldly, and we are happy to help. We have a general onboarding course that would be helpful for anybody who is brand new to the Worldly platform. We also have a full e learning curriculum on the Higg FEM that goes over how to get started, how to analyze your results, and also includes deep dives into each section by the Cascale Facility Tools team. You may also complete any of these courses individually if you do not want to complete the full curriculum. We also have an e-learning courses on Insights Hub and the Facility Data Manager with new courses added regularly. Check out the full e-learning list to see all courses currently available. All e-learning courses are also subtitled in multiple languages, and I'm sharing that list now as well. In addition to e learning, we are also hosting plenty of live opportunities to learn more and ask questions just like this. First, we have our series of FEM q and a's cohosted with Worldly and the Cascale facility tools and verification teams. Following that, we are hosting a series of get to know the Higg FEM sections training. These sessions are designed for new and returning users who want a refresher on the FEM contents section by section to better prepare for the assessment. We will also be hosting periodic sessions on Facility Data Manager and Insights Hub. Check out the training calendar for links to register for all the sessions that I just covered. Oh, and I don't think I have that link handy right now, but I'll show you how you can access it. I'll also include that in the follow-up email as well. Lastly, we have recorded webinars covering a variety of topics included, including the best practices series, how to use FDM to get a head start on FEM, and more in the link. All, webinar recordings have subtitles in multiple languages as well. And here's the link to the support site, and I'll show you, how you can access that section during the demo. Lastly, I'd like to high highlight a few key written resources to check out to better prepare you for this cadence. First is the HowtoHigg website. This is where Cascale publishes the full, long form PDF guidance translated into multiple languages, along with the Higg FEM methodology, scoring, and verification guidance. HowtoHigg is the best place for technical guidance on how to answer the questions. So for anybody who, you know, indicated that that was a big challenge, that is going to be your best bet, and I'll show you how you can navigate to the different sections more easily. I've also shared some direct links already, but in the presentation file, yeah, you can find all of the links on the screen as well. On the Worldly side, we have the support site. I've highlighted a few helpful articles here that should help during the cadence, but there is much more. First is the cadence timeline. This has been updated to reflect the new cadence dates and the unposting deadline adjustment. There are outlier guides for both brands and facilities to better understand how outliers are identified and resolved. We have a written guide for importing FDM data into FEM and a quick start guide on Insights Hub and Facility Data Manager, which is a great place to start if you haven't had a chance to explore those tools yet. Our knowledge base is fully translated into our supported languages and contains resources on how to navigate the platform, frequently asked questions, and additional guidance. Now, let's talk about what you can get started on now. So first, you can purchase a subscription if you haven't done so already and start learning. So first off, set up your account on app. Worldly. Io. So that's app. Worldly. w o r l d l y. Io. Purchase a subscription, which I'll show you how to do during the demo. And you can open your assessment. Go ahead and read the guidance ideally, or take an e learning course or register for one of the deep dive section webinars. I'll show you where you can also access all of that as well. Next, you can also import your FEM twenty twenty four and FDM data. So you can roll over your qualitative data from FEM twenty twenty four. You can also import twelve months of FDM quantitative data. So in this case, you could import, you know, January through October right now. And then after the end of December, you could import November and December once that's complete for your full year. So that's gonna be your quantitative data. And then you have some time to review for completeness and accuracy. You can also collect any data. So if you're brand new and you're just not really sure where to start, again, checking out that guidance, maybe taking an e learning course. So review that guidance, think about who might have that data. I'll talk through some of that as well or where that data is stored. And you can also identify any gaps and processes that you have now so that you may implement that before the end of the reporting period so that you can say, oh, yep, I do have that process and answer yes in some of those questions. In addition to those items that you can start now, you can also complete the Worldly Platform Experts program. The Worldly platform experts program is a blended learning curriculum that provides everything you need to understand facility environmental tools like the Higg FEM in the Worldly platform. You will complete a series of e-learning courses, attend live sessions, and join a community of your peers to discuss problems and learn together. With this program, you'll gain additional support throughout the cadence, access to experts, and exclusive access to community features coming soon. After successful completion of the curriculum and program requirements, you'll earn a badge for your efforts that you can share on different places. So go ahead and learn more in the resource. And there it is. I'm sharing now as well. I do want to note this is not a requirement, so please do not assume you have to do this. This is something totally optional just if you would like to kind of earn a badge for all that learning. So not a requirement at all. I do also get the question a lot like, do I have to do FDM? FDM is not a requirement to do FEM. So it's an optional kind of supportive feature that I'll talk about a little bit more during the demo, but it is not generally a requirement. You may have a business partner that asks you to do that, but FDM, generally speaking, is not required. And neither is the platform experts program, but just something that I wanted to share. Alright. Now let's go ahead and get into a brief demonstration, and I'll have some time to, answer some questions. So let me go ahead and exit that. And I just want to make sure I'm in the right spot. Okay. Excellent. Hopefully, everybody can see my screen Okay. And just want to make sure questions are coming through Q and A. So I do have Q and A on the other side of my screen. So as they're coming through, I'll be able to kind of pull some of those as we're going along. But let me go over a few things to start. So I'm in the demo environment. So some of you may also already use facility data manager or may not have access to this product impact section. So just something to be aware of. Once you do create your account, again, that's going to be on app.Worldly. Io. You just click create account. And then once you verify your email address and either join an existing company account if you're just a new user. So make sure that you search for your existing account if you know that your company already has one. Or you can create a new company account. Once you create that account, then this is kind of the page that you'll land on. To access the subscription information, you'll go into the upper right hand corner and then go to subscriptions. If you do have access to multiple accounts, you'll see the option to switch between accounts here. So just be aware you'll see, you know, which account you're currently logged into. I currently have the standard plan for two years, so this is active until twenty twenty seven. So I actually don't need to purchase again. If you purchased two years last year, you don't need to make another purchase to complete FEM. And again, FEM is something that, you know, are your business partners requiring it? Or is it something that your facility chooses to do year over year to track performance? But either way, this is kind of where you can purchase. So just make sure that you have FEM selected if you are going for the standard option. You do get a fifteen percent discount if you are let me just go ahead and show it what it'll look like before you actually purchase. So you choose whichever option you want here and then you choose if you want one year or two years. These are in USD, so US dollars. So just be aware of that. And then here you see you do have a fifteen percent savings if you already know that you're going to purchase two years. So you'd make your selection and then go through the payment process. There's wire transfer, credit card, and I feel like I'm missing one. Let me just pretend like I'm gonna buy something for someone. And Alipay. So those are your different options there. Once you purchase, then FEM will become available to you on your dashboard. So here you'll see it under the assessments assessments section. You'll also see it under where it says supply chain, and then you can go assessments, Higg FEM. For anybody, if you have completed a past FEM, you'll probably see your most recent one listed here. I didn't get very far in my last one, let's say. But again, this is a demo environment, so this isn't going to have complete data necessarily. So just be aware of that. But you should see, you know, whatever status you have here. Or if you haven't opened your new FEM, then you'll see the option here. So if you haven't started your twenty twenty five one, you'll click on where it says not started. And then you'll have the option to import. So here you can roll forward your assessment data and you can also share with your previously shared business partners. So if you are completing year over year, it kind of gets easier every year. So if you are brand new, just be aware, it might feel like you're answering a lot of questions. But for the stuff that doesn't change, a lot of this can be rolled forward so that you're really only updating, you know, the things that really have have differences year over year. So I'll go ahead and continue sharing with those folks and click continue assessment. And while that's loading, my Internet's probably mad at me because I'm trying to do too many things at once. But let me answer a couple questions. There was a question we want to make sure for the which verification body and verifier to use. That is up to you. So your business partners might have recommendations, but ultimately check out that verifier body list that I shared in the resources section. So that should be in that resources area. I'll also be sharing that as a follow-up in the email as well. So that's not something that we dictate. There was also a question on what is the last date to post the self assessment? So I believe the last date to post the self assessment for twenty twenty five is, I want to say December thirty first, but it might be actually sixty days before that. But it's like the end of the year. I'll double check that for you. But just know that there also may be some deadlines that your business partners might have. So that might be something that you should double check as well. All right. So here you have the option of it is your very first time completing it, you can do Higg FEM foundations. So this is only an option because I haven't had a complete FEM on this account before. Generally, we recommend doing the full assessment. But if you are kind of new and you're onboarding to the FEM, you know, double check with your business partners if that's acceptable. But this is basically just like the level one questions, whereas the full assessment is here and you can see a little bit more information here as well. So for foundations, you don't get scoring and you don't get, like, benchmarking and some of the analytics information. So there's no cost difference between the two. But generally speaking, we recommend going with the the full version. Great. So then you would click continue. And then here we have our FEM. So like I said, I did have a previous FEM. So some of that information that I indicated in the past is rolling forward. So we see country rolled forward, my facility type rolled forward. So if you have completed it in the past, that's kind of what that roll forward information does. You'll also see that it also just gives you the information as well. So, when we get to a section that has quantitative data, that is something that you'll see you'll be able to see your quantitative data from the last year, just so that it kind of gives you a better idea of like what number you might be looking for, you know, on an invoice or what have you. In this particular situation, I didn't complete the full information. So not as much as rolling forward. So I'm sure if you did complete the full FEM, more information would actually roll forward and you'll see more of these sections are complete. But like we said, there's a site info and permit section. This is going to be information like what kind of categories do you make? What kind of facility processes do you have? That sort of thing. It also includes information like your production volume. So this is where facility type change comes in. So if you are in that category that had a little split, just be aware that now you might want to update your facility type, and then you'll be able to choose a different unit of measure. So if you previously were unable to report in kilograms, you know, now you can versus or if you weren't able to report in pieces or pairs, etcetera. So you answered some questions about your site information. I do want to note that as you kind of continue down the assessment, it is auto saving. So just be aware if you have a temperamental Internet, sometimes that can be something that you need to be aware of. So give it a second to save afterwards because it's auto saving. So you can always come back to it at a later time. But as you're kind of answering questions, it will auto save. Within each question, there's a little section that says view guidance. This will show you kind of the short information that comes from the HowtoHigg guidance here. So it'll give you more information about this particular question and how to answer. So answer yes if and you know, answer no if not, basically. For anything that you might want to upload documentation to, anything that asks specifically for documentation will have like a big button that says upload. But if you optionally want to upload some documentation that kind of supports your answer, helps like validate your answer, you can also use the upload button up here. I do also want to mention that there is a little reference ID here in the upper right hand corner of every question. This is the unique identifier for each question. So this is what you'll see in the exports, for example. This is how you can look up different information on resources, all of that good stuff. I'm not going to go through every single question because we would be here all day. But do be aware, I'm going to host a specific deep dive session on every single one of these sections. So if you're like, oh, I really need help with the energy section or, you know, chemicals or what have you, all of those have already been scheduled. Even if you can't attend live, I'll send the recording out. So go ahead and register for those. Those are all on the training calendar. And I'll I'll actually go ahead and share that because that was the one link that I didn't quite grab. So let me go ahead and share this here. So that would be sessions like this where I'll also send you, you know, the recording and different resources and things of that nature. So just wanted to make sure I got that out to Brody. In addition to that, you can also see below each question if it's included in verification, as well as like the number for the question as well. So as you go down, you'll complete each section. EMS is going to be things like your environmental management system. So this is a lot of qualitative information. Again, if you did previously completed it, some of that stuff will roll over to save you some time. And then for other sections, for energy, for example, you might also have some quantitative data. So in that case, if you have used FDM, that information can also be imported as well. If you do choose to do that, let me show you just really briefly what that looks like. So this is the support site that I shared earlier. If you go to assessments, this is where you can find all of the FEM information. There's also, you know, a bunch more here. So you can see the cadence timeline information, the summary of changes. There's also this facility data manager data import. So there's a little short video. It's just ten minutes. There's also just a walk through that says twenty twenty four, but it's the same thing for this year, as well as the different information like things that you might want to check off. So if you have been using FDM, that can be really super helpful. There's also different things like the getting started guide. So if you are new. This walks you through step by step. And again, if you have previously completed FEM, you can go to your previous assessment and then there'll be a banner across the top in blue where you can just click start assessment if you already have a subscription that includes FEM for this year. So this is what it'll look like if you fall into that category. That resource, along with a bunch of other help resources, are available in this question mark where it says help center. So that'll take you directly to the help center there. And then for each section here, you'll have different guidance as well as, you know, different numbering for each section. Once you're done with everything, then you'll click post assessment and then be able to post your module. That's kind of the basics of the demo. Oh, let me also oh, I'm not seeing my little widget. Oh, it might not be in the demo environment. Let me see if I can grab that from staging. So sorry about that. Because within each module let me see if I can show you here. I may not be able to. But within each of those, there's that little icon of, like, a little question mark. I think they're doing work in staging, so it might not really show you that. But let me just show you within the presentation again. So that's in production. It's it's live and available, so I do apologize. But this is what it looks like in the view guidance section. There's this little AI help option here, and you can click on that, and that's where you can answer those questions or ask those questions rather. So if you're like, hey, do I have to answer this question if I didn't achieve level one? You know, you can ask that question there. You can also just within any section within the FEM, you can also just click on that sidebar as well to ask a question. And you can ask the question in any language of your choosing, and it will respond to you in that language. So, just wanted to highlight that as well. Alright. In addition, once you are done with your module, this is where you can kind of see your past module. You can also view it. You can view download the data. These aren't complete, so we're not seeing any of that. But you can kind of see you can download the certificate as well. And in this one, this one's verified, so it will have a different status there for you to review. All right. So let us go ahead and talk through some questions. So the first question I see is the facility doesn't have any wastewater. How to get a high score in this part? So if you don't have any wastewater, it depends on what you mean by that. If you are literally a zero liquid discharge facility, there is more guidance about that within the guidance. If you go to HowtoHigg and then go to Higg FEM And I shared the HowtoHigg website earlier. But you can go to this question by question guidance, or this is also in the downloadable guidance that I shared earlier. But you can come in here, go to the wastewater section. There are some applicability questions within this section that asks like, do you have this type of wastewater, etcetera? So just make sure that you're asking or answering those accurately. But if you're this type of facility, like you don't actually have any zero any liquid discharge because everything is recycled, then that will be an option. But please note that domestic wastewater is included. So it's not just industrial wastewater that's reported in this section. But definitely check out the wastewater guidance to learn more as well. All right. The next question is when carrying forward last year's data, which assessment will carry forward? The verified assessment or the self assessment? It will carry forward the verified assessment. However, if you have level two and three questions that you answered, it will also carry forward some of those. So just be aware that, you know, even though that's not included in verification, basically, it's just carrying forward whatever has been deemed like the most accurate and has been reviewed. The next question is what is open submission in FDM? So FDM, when you have FDM and I might not be able to show you in this account, and this doesn't like me today. So within FDM, open submission is just the submission that you can open. So the new one. So if you wanted to grab a new one and click submit data, when you're in the module section, you just see open submission. That's when you can open a new one. So if I you know, this option is my new one until you name it with your reporting month and year. All right. The next question is, when import FDM into Higg FEM, is that target setting also rolled out or only the quantitative data? That's a really great question. Right now, it does not include the targets. But that has been something that I've submitted to the product team as a suggestion based on feedback from customers. So I'll go ahead and add like an upvote to that for you because that is something that they are interested in developing. It's just not something that we have right now. But we are constantly iterating and kind of adding additional things that you can import and pull over and everything like that. So great question there. Question was, can I get the presentation as a PDF? Yes. I will be sending that also in the follow-up as well. Also, just since we're at time technically, I wanted to share another document with you. So this is kind of our facility environmental toolkit. This has just some getting started information. So especially for any folks that are really new to the Worldly platform and to Higg FEM, this is a great place to start. It's a simple kind of shortened version of the guidance. Please note it does not replace the full full long form guidance. It is kind of just a getting started thing. You can print it out. You can add your key contacts to it, that sort of thing. So I'll be sharing that in the follow-up email as well, but just wanted to share that before folks might have to hop. Also, do want to be respectful of the interpreter's time. So if our interpreters do have to hop, please feel free to go ahead. I will be adding some translated subtitles to this session as well to the recording. So I'll be sure to add that as well. All right. Let's see. The next question is I'll try to get through a few more questions just since we have a lot, and I want to make sure that we, you know, get through as many as we can. So the next question is, has your facility regarding the question within the assessment that is, has your facility attended a Cascale approved Higg FEM training course provided by a training body within the past four months? So let me go to that actually within FEM just to kind of show people what we're talking about. So this is a question within the site information section. So there's a specific question. Is TFL considered a Cascale approved trainer body? And does this question affect the scoring? So no, it does not affect scoring. And that is going to be I believe it's like question eight here. So it's not a scored question. But TFL, I don't know off the top of my head, but I did share the training body link earlier. So I'll be sure to include that in the follow-up resources that I include in the email as well. Right. So hopefully, I answered this question, but there's just a question. Where can I see all the questions so I can prepare my materials in advance? So you can do so within the platform. So anything that you might know off the top of your head, it does have, like, the resource information here. But you can start answering questions now after you purchase your subscription. And then you can start to review the guidance here. Or you can go to the Cascale website to see, you know, in this kind of format, which is section by section. They also have the downloadable version here as well. You can also get into some of the e learning. So if you are within the platform, from this little question mark, you can go to Learning Center. And then if it prompts you to log in, you just enter your Worldly platform credentials. And then that will take you to this place. And then you can go to Catalog and then Assessments. And you'll see a ton of different information about FEM. There's also a full curriculum here as well, which I'll be linking to as well. So this is a great place to start if you want to start, you know, becoming familiar. But if you want to actually start entering your information, you can do that now after you have kind of initiated the FEM. So all of this will auto save. You can't post until the end of the year. So once you actually have a full year of reporting data for twenty twenty five, so just be aware of that. But posting will be available in January. And then yeah. But you can start entering information now if you have, you know, some of that qualitative information, especially. All right. The next question is, in Insights Hub, how does the factory control who can view the factory's information? So that's a great question. Insights Hub is controlled based on who you're sharing your data with within either FDM or FEM. So if you're sharing your data via those assessments, then Insights Hub, they can also view that in their kind of aggregate view. You can also limit if they can see like attachments and things like that. So if you're like, hey, I don't want my proprietary production volume information uploaded for other brands to see or something like that, That's something that you can turn off when you're sharing. So do check out the kinda getting started here. This goes over all of that information and how to share and, you know, sharing different things and and settings and all of that. So that's available in there. And I do wanna note that everybody who collects FEM data has access to Insights Hub and then the FEM data that they have. So even though I'm a facility, I could still view my data here. I don't have any completed ones on this particular account for the year that I have selected. I don't think they have twenty twenty three. Oh, they do, but it's kinda junky data, so it's not very helpful. But, you know, you can access Insights Hub if you have any FEM data, and it's not something that you have to pay extra for. Alright. There's a question. Purchase Worldly subscription, is that mandatory or not? If you are completing the FEM, you have to purchase the FEM. So it just kind of depends on what you mean by that. But the subscription also includes FDM and Insights Hub when you get FEM. So it just depends. But check with your business partners on if they're requiring you to complete FEM. There's a question. Is there an option to subscribe to FEM paying through a bank transfer? We do have a wire transfer option. That's an option that's selectable in the subscription section. So you just select that, and then you'll be issued an invoice. And you can follow along. There's also payments information if you go to the FEM section or actually just like the main how to get started. There's information on, like, completing payment and that whole process and everything there. There's a question. Can you share the elearning courses link to us? And yes, absolutely, I can. So I will share that with you afterwards. I think I shared the full list earlier. Yes, I did share the full list earlier. I'm also sharing the quick start guide just for everybody there. And it looks like we did lose our interpreters. So sorry, folks, if you're really relying on that. I'm going to try to get to a few more questions. And then anything that I can't get to, I'll answer in that Q and A report in a follow-up email. The next question, is there a certificate issued for Higg FEM course completion? So it depends on what you mean. If you're talking about that question that we answered earlier about the question eight within the site info section, generally speaking, you will get like a reference number from a training body that provides that. I don't issue a certificate for this particular session, if that's what you're asking. But if you do complete different e learning courses here, you do get a certificate for each of those that you complete. So that's available there. All right. There's a question oh, this is a great question to clarify. So if we enroll in the e-learning courses, will we receive any certificate to support the question in the site information section? So no. So that question is very specifically about the training bodies. So I shared that link in the resources earlier, but if you just search Higg FEM training bodies, that will be the first option. It's under Casinet sorry, Sumerra's website, but it's a Cascale FEM trainer body list. So these are all the different trainer bodies. So that's what that question is asking is if you've gotten a training from one of these entities because they'll be able to issue you like a reference number and all of that kind of stuff. So hopefully, helps. The next question is, we purchased and completed the FSLM module in September. Now, we intend to purchase the FEM module. To save on transfer fees, we hope to pay for the complete package combining FSLM and FEM, but this option is currently unavailable. Can you please advise how we can purchase the complete package? That's a great question. So if you are running into that issue, I believe this account is actually under standard. You should be able to upgrade. My particular account, I have not paid because this is a demo account. So once you actually pay, then you can actually upgrade. But you should be able to go to your subscription section and then upgrade to complete. If you do not see this option, please feel free to reach out to support. So that's available here, and you can either chat with our support team or submit a support request. But you should be able to come to your subscription section to upgrade. So great question. All right. Next question is where can we see all the questions list level one, or three for preparing in advance? So again, that's going to be on the Cascale website, I would say. So there's first off, again, if we just go to Higg Index tools here, Higg FEM, and then there's the twenty twenty five resources. They will be adding the additional translated guidance here once it's available, but the full kind of PDF version is here. You can also kind of click through the table of contents here as well, or that is also reflected on their website. So it just depends on what you prefer. But this is where you can kind of see everything and see all the questions listed, as well as, like, a lot of helpful information and technical nuggets. The next question is, is the written resources available in various languages? I answered this previous. So yes, this is going to be available in multiple languages for twenty twenty five very soon, so by the end of this year. However, I do want to point you, if you are more comfortable with guidance in other languages, if you come to this Higg FEM twenty twenty four Resources section, there are all of these different languages here for that guidance. The assessment has not massively changed this year, so a lot of this is still valid if you want to get prepared before the full guidance is available in another language. But the full guidance is available in English now, and it is being translated currently. Question. Can I get this training documents through email? Yes. Absolutely. I'll be sending a follow-up. The next question is how to use all of them if this is our first time using it. I mean, if we don't have FEM twenty twenty four data. Yeah. So if you don't have FEM twenty four data, then you'll just kind of be starting from scratch. This particular account actually hasn't filled out too much on FEM, so this is almost there. But basically, what I would recommend is to read over some of the guidance or you can start doing some of the e learning if you prefer like you're an audio kind of person. So that can be helpful. And then, you know, there's a lot of stuff that you can start answering now. So you can start answering and go, Okay, great. You know, all of the options are listed there. They're pretty descriptive for different things. So hopefully that helps, but you can always click that view guidance. So I recommend taking a look at kind of the overview for each section to kind of understand that. Also in that toolkit that I shared earlier, that kind of gives you a really good starting point if you're really, really brand new. So it's a very like kind of beginner friendly. I haven't ever done this before. Gives you an overview about, you know, what is FEM? What is FDM? What is Insights Hub? What are these different metrics? What are these different definitions for things? So definitely check that out. But again, that full long form content on HowtoHigg is probably going to be the best place to find that. All right. And Excellent. There's just a question about where can we purchase FEM module twenty twenty five? So hopefully I covered that. I'll also be including a helpful article that kind of goes over how to purchase, but that's just in the subscription section. And again, if you did purchase two years last year, it should just show you, oh, hey, this is good through twenty twenty six or, you know, whatever time period that you purchased it. And then if you are brand new and you haven't purchased yet, either standard or complete include FEM. If you are choosing standard, just make sure that you have the have FEM selected. Alright. Just trying to see if there's any that I can kind of answer really quickly. There's a question about if the recording will be shared. Yes. I'll be recording the record. I'll be sharing the recording with all registrants afterwards via email. Typically, that's in a day or two. I do some light editing on the video, and then I add translated subtitles in multiple languages. So it takes a little bit more time than a typical recording. But, I'll be sending that out. All right. Let's see. All right. There's a question. Are all courses free of charge for us? So yes, all of these e learning courses that you see here are included. You can think of it as, guess, included with your subscription. So those are all here. The only thing that's currently like of charge would be the platform experts program. All of the content within the platform experts program is still accessible to you. So there's nothing that's kind of like, oh, you're not able to learn about this topic necessarily. But the platform experts program will give you additional access to different experts. We also have regular cohort check ins where we can chat and like say, hey, how's it going? What kind of questions are you having? So it's a little bit more service kind of involved and support there. And you also kind of get we'll get exclusive access to our community features once those are available. So that's the only thing that is charged right now. That program is ninety nine dollars and includes information on Higg FEM, Facility Data Manager and Insights Hub, and basically all the facility environmental tools within Worldly's platform. And with full completion of that program, you'll get a badge for your efforts as well. That is also just listed in right here. So here, you can click in and learn more about that. But again, that is not a requirement. That is just I just wanted to mention because that's the only thing that's kind of like a paid option. But yeah, but all of the regular catalog options here are not anything that you have to pay extra for. All right. And I see there's a note about the verifier bodies link. Can you please check? Yeah, that does happen. Sometimes the link just won't load. So, you just search Higg FEM verifier bodies, it's a Sumerra site. Let me see if I can reshare it. But I kind of have this problem sometimes, too. It worked for me. So let me I'll just share this in the chat just in case. Hopefully that one works, but this should be what it looks like. But hopefully that helps. All right. And awesome. Great. So in the interest of time, since we are over time, and I want to be respectful of everybody's time, I see there's like a couple of questions just about if you're having issues with subscriptions. If you are having an issue with subscriptions or you're seeing like, oh, payment is not resolved or something like that, I'm seeing this message in particular because I had I paid with wire transfer, but my payment hasn't cleared yet. So if you did pay with a wire transfer, but your payment hasn't cleared, that might be what's happening. But also feel free to reach out to support. And again, you can do so through here and you can either chat with them or click submit support request. And there's a specific option about, like, payment support. So that gets you directly to the right folks for that. So if you are having any issues with that, definitely reach out to those folks as they'll be able to help you the best. But yeah. All right. We are over time. So I just want to say thank you so much for your time and attention today. Like I said, I'll be sharing all of those links that I shared out with everybody prior. I'll also be going through all of the questions that folks submitted that we didn't quite get to today. But hopefully this was helpful and gave you kind of a good jumping off point. But I do want to mention, you know, again, check out the training schedule. I did see some requests on the last session about, hey, I want to deep dive into energy or what have you. So we've got a ton more sessions or sessions scheduled. And again, all of the recordings get sent out. So if you don't, you know, can't attend live at whatever time, then you can always register and get the recording as well. So thank you so much. And I hope it was helpful. And thank you so much for the emojis. I always love that. That's so fun. Anyways, all right. Well, hopefully, I'll see you guys sometime at an in person event maybe soon. I don't know. But I hope this was helpful. And yeah, definitely register for some of those events in the future. And look out for an email from me soon. All right. Thank you so much. Have a good one.