Non-EU vendorESG & SustainabilityHeadquarters: US

Higg Index: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

The Higg Index is a suite of tools that companies in the apparel, footwear and textile value chain use to measure the environmental and social performance of products, materials and production sites. It includes modules for facilities (environmental and social and labour conditions) and an index for materials. The methodology is developed by Cascale, formerly the Sustainable Apparel Coalition; the tools are delivered as software as a service through the Worldly platform, formerly Higg Co.

Cascale, Inc. is a non-profit organisation headquartered in the United States (Oakland, California), with offices that include Amsterdam. Its privacy policy states that personal data is stored and processed globally, including in the US, without naming data-centre locations. There is no self-hosted option: the tools are available only through the platform. For a European organisation this means supplier data may fall under US jurisdiction, while many brands ask their suppliers to use the methodology itself.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Higg Index pre-selected

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Sovereignty score

17 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-210
Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
Data residency SOV-30
No hosting in Europe (US)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
Key management with a non-European vendor
Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
Closed source: switching requires data migration
Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-615
Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 13, 2026

Headquarters	US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	USVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	NoVendor-stated
Category	ESG & Sustainability
Type	Product
Website	cascale.org ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Higg Index

The European alternatives to Higg Index come from our knowledge base of over 8,000 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

53 European ESG & Sustainability vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with Higg Index

Higg Index is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

Higg Index hosts data outside the EU (US). Personal data therefore leaves the EU, which requires a transfer mechanism under the GDPR and pulls the data residency score down.

Higg Index is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Higg Index together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Higg Index?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Higg Index include bluesign, Brightway and Carbmee. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Higg Index?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Higg Index include Brightway. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Higg Index GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Higg Index is headquartered in US and hosts data in US. Its GDPR compliance is limited or unclear. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 13, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in ESG & Sustainability

ESG & Sustainability: Carbon accounting, CSRD reporting, supply-chain due diligence (CSDDD/EUDR/CBAM) and ESG data management. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

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