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Human Impact Equivalence Framework® · Field Partnership

Landfills2Landmarks

A UN-accredited NGO working on textile waste, extended producer responsibility and circular infrastructure across Ghana and the United Kingdom. The Human Impact Equivalence Framework® is applied to the Foundation's programmes.

The organisation

Landfills2Landmarks Foundation (L2L) is a UN-accredited NGO operating in Ghana and the United Kingdom, where it is constituted as a Community Interest Company.

Its work sits at the point where the global second-hand clothing trade meets the waste infrastructure of the countries receiving it: textile flows, extended producer responsibility, and the circular systems that determine whether discarded clothing becomes a landfill problem or a material input.

Lavinia Fernandes, Founder and CEO of Symolem, serves as Vice-Chair of the Foundation.

Kantamanto and the second-hand trade

Kantamanto Market in Accra is one of the largest second-hand clothing markets in the world, and the point at which a significant share of Europe's and North America's discarded garments arrives.

What is exported as surplus is sorted, repaired, resold and — where there is no market for it — discarded into infrastructure that was never built to absorb it.

L2L's work on these flows is what makes the case concrete. It is also what informs Symolem's position on extended producer responsibility: an EPR regime that stops at the border of the producing market has not accounted for the waste it creates.

A bale of second-hand clothing labelled 'Best UK A Grade' stacked at Kantamanto Market, Accra.
UK-graded bale arriving at Kantamanto.
Wholesale bales of imported second-hand clothing stacked on a Kantamanto street.
Wholesale bales on the Kantamanto street.
Traders and porters moving through a covered aisle inside Kantamanto Market.
Inside the covered aisles of Kantamanto.
A kayayei porter carries a large aluminium bowl of goods on her head through a Kantamanto clothing aisle.
Kayayei porter moving stock through the market.
A Kantamanto trader beneath a rack of second-hand bras hung from her stall.
Second-hand lingerie stall, Kantamanto.
A dense wall of imported second-hand children's sandals for sale at Kantamanto.
Imported children's footwear at resale.
A wide view of the streets around Kantamanto Market with traders, porters and stalls.
The streets around Kantamanto.
Symolem team on a beach in Accra strewn with textile and plastic waste, speaking with local fishermen.
On the beach with local fishermen.

Field images: Symolem at Kantamanto Market and the Accra coastline, 2026.

All images supplied by Lavinia Fernandes. Copyright Symolem Limited.

Trace. Account. Rebuild.

The L2L Summit was held in Accra in May 2026 under the theme Trace. Account. Rebuild. — a sequence rather than a slogan: trace the material, account for what it costs, then rebuild the infrastructure around it.

Trace. Account. Rebuild.

Where HIE® applies

The Human Impact Equivalence Framework® is applied to L2L's programmes for the same reason it is applied anywhere else: to establish, in advance of any claim, what will be evidenced and what will not.

  • Material flows traced to households

    How tonnage moving through the market connects to the livelihoods that depend on it.

  • Livelihood durability

    Whether income generated in and around the trade holds over time, not just at the point of intervention.

  • Infrastructure outcomes

    What changes on the ground as a result of circular infrastructure investment, measured against the baseline.

  • Attribution boundaries

    The Causal Integrity Test and the Three Degree Rule applied so that outcomes are claimed only as far as the evidence reaches.

These are the measures being established. They are not results being claimed.

How this connects to Symolem's policy work

The Foundation's field evidence informs Symolem's submissions to UK Government on Digital Product Passport legislative architecture, and its position on extended producer responsibility in the ESPR and UK regimes.

Governance note: Landfills2Landmarks is an independent organisation. Symolem is not a delivery partner and does not receive funding from the Foundation. The relationship is a governance role and the application of the HIE® Framework to the Foundation's impact reporting.

From the Summit

Landfills2Landmarks 2026, Accra

Lavinia Fernandes with L2L Foundation leadership at the Landfills2Landmarks 2026 Summit in Accra.
Lavinia Fernandes with L2L Foundation leadership, Accra 2026.
Sponsors and partners of the Landfills2Landmarks 2026 Summit on stage in Accra.
Summit sponsors and partners, Accra 2026.
Model on the L2L Summit runway wearing an upcycled paisley co-ord with reclaimed denim panels.
Upcycled paisley co-ord with reclaimed denim.
Model on the L2L Summit runway wearing a blue and yellow ensemble made from reclaimed textiles.
Reclaimed textiles reworked into new ready-to-wear.
Model on the L2L Summit runway wearing a denim skirt tiered with orange print ruffles from reclaimed cloth.
Tiered denim and reclaimed print, L2L runway.
Model on the L2L Summit runway wearing a patchwork denim and adire waistcoat with matching shorts.
Patchwork denim and adire, L2L runway.

Working together

Impact measurement for NGOs and funders

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