The Apparel Recovery Coalition (ARC) has officially launched, with four European brands—Adidas, H&M Group, Inditex and Bestseller—jointly funding a pilot in Ghana to explore feasible pathways for extended producer responsibility (EPR) fees to flow across borders to used-clothing recipient countries.

Key Points

  • ARC was initiated by The Or Foundation, with voluntary funding from the four brands and Circle Economy serving as secretariat.
  • The pilot's core scenario is Accra's Kantamanto Market: The Or Foundation estimates that local resellers and upcyclers recirculate 25 million garments per month.
  • Most post-consumer textiles collected and sorted in the EU flow abroad; ARC hopes to replicate the model in at least one more recipient country within two years.

Liz Ricketts, co-founder and executive director of The Or Foundation, said the organization has spent the past five years calling for "globally accountable EPR," because current policy does not allow EPR fees to flow across borders, while used textiles themselves do. The creation of ARC is meant to answer "how cross-border EPR can work on the ground" through real cases.

The coalition's operational focus is upstream intervention: channeling voluntary funding from European brands into recipient countries of post-consumer textiles, leveraging and scaling Kantamanto's existing circular fashion ecosystem, and preventing used clothing from ending up on beaches and in other dumpsites as much as possible. Kantamanto is one of the largest second-hand resale and upcycling ecosystems in the world. The Or Foundation estimates that local workers already recirculate 25 million garments per month, but there is still room for improvement with brand support.

Ricketts stressed that ARC is not spending another five years on theoretical deliberation: "Kantamanto is not a dumpsite, nor is it a perfectly functioning circular economy, but it has agency, accumulated knowledge and skills, and plenty of possibility. Starting here is meant to send a signal—ambitious circular solutions must be rooted in reality."

On funding, the coalition's pilot-phase activities are voluntarily financed by Adidas, H&M Group, Inditex and Bestseller, with hopes that more brands will join in the future and ultimately push this blueprint into EU EPR policy. ARC will study how EPR fees and other brand accountability mechanisms can support the global circular fashion ecosystem, focusing on reuse, upcycling, recycling and responsible waste management. Ghana is the testing ground, and the coalition plans to apply the blueprint in at least one more country within two years.

Hilde van Duijn, ARC spokesperson and CEO of the Netherlands-based Circle Economy, noted that research shows most post-consumer textiles collected and sorted in the EU are exported outside the bloc, and even when these garments are reused or upcycled, they ultimately become waste in recipient countries. "We will explore how producer responsibility payments can follow textiles to the end of their life cycle, wherever that end may be. Through ARC, we hope to prove this path is viable," she said.

For the used-clothing trade, ARC is the first to move the EPR mechanism of "brand funding flowing across borders to recipient countries" from advocacy to practical testing. If the Ghana pilot succeeds and is incorporated into the EU policy framework, recycling and upcycling segments in export destinations could gain a stable funding channel, rather than having local communities and the environment bear the cost alone.

Source: H&M, Inditex, Bestseller and Adidas Back Coalition · Originally published 2026-09-29