Museums Association: Regenerative sustainability article

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Museums have long held a dual responsibility: to care for the past and to shape the future. Increasingly, that future is defined by urgent questions of sustainability. Many cultural institutions are taking important steps to reduce waste, lower carbon footprints, and rethink exhibition design - but the sector now has the opportunity to go further. What if museums didn’t just sustain, but actively regenerated the communities, places, and environments they serve?

One practical way forward is through collaboration and resource-sharing. This is the thinking behind a new online platform and pilot exchange scheme developed by the Association for Heritage Interpretation (AHI), supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Launching in December 2025, the platform will give museums and heritage organisations a practical mechanism to share materials, resources, and exhibition infrastructure.

The idea is simple, but powerful: instead of buying or building everything anew, institutions can access an exchange network, connecting under-used display cases, props, interactives, and other exhibition materials with organisations who need them. The scheme is designed not only to reduce waste and carbon emissions, but also to create greater financial equity. Smaller museums with limited budgets gain access to high-quality materials, while larger organisations can extend the life and impact of their investments.

For me, this is a full-circle moment. As a young museum professional at the National Justice Museum in Nottingham, I spent hours pouring over the Museums Association journal directory, searching for affordable exhibition materials to repurpose. Back then, the need was financial; today, the need is also environmental. By pooling resources across the sector, we can meet both.

But material exchange is only one part of the picture. If we are to meet the challenges of our time, we need to embrace a regenerative model of practice. Regenerative museums go beyond doing less harm - they create positive impact: social, cultural, and ecological. Rather than simply sustaining, they actively restore and enrich.

And this isn’t just theoretical. Across the UK, museums of every scale are already demonstrating what regenerative practice looks like in action. The examples here are all finalists or award winners of the AHI Engaging People Awards.

Stromness Museum, has transformed into a dynamic centre for climate action, inviting the local community to become active participants in exploring environmental change. Changes in a Lifetime uses art, science, and hands-on engagement to foster enduring connections between people, place, and nature. Youth-led projects form the heart of this transformation. Local young people have been involved in seawater monitoring, installing a temperature probe that streams live data directly into the museum. Here, they are seen snorkelling off the pier, cultivating a sense of stewardship over the marine ecosystem.

Artist Jenny Pope has drawn inspiration from the museum’s collection to create a floating sculpture designed not only to represent resilience in unprecedented times, but to actively encourage marine life to colonise it.

These initiatives make the idea of regeneration tangible: in young people immersed in the sea, in live environmental data pulsing into the museum, and in a sculpture that functions simultaneously as art, science, and sanctuary. Changes in a Lifetime is more than a project- it is a living example of how museums can evolve from places of observation into spaces of action and refuge, nurturing both ecological and community resilience for the future.

At the redeveloped Kilmartin Museum in Scotland, Lizzie Rose’s Carbon Legacy and Forest mark a compelling shift from sustainability toward regeneration. Carbon Legacy drew inspiration from the Glen’s 5,800-year-old cursus monument, originally constructed from 375 felled oaks. Central to the installation were 375 living oak seedlings, transforming the museum into both a site of remembrance and a seedbed of future possibility. With Forest, community workshops invited participants to draw each seedling using oak-gall ink, producing 375 unique artworks. The installation echoed the collective labour of the ancient builders while connecting it to the efforts of today’s climate activists.

Importantly, the legacy extends beyond the exhibition: the young oaks were planted in two expansive circles on the museum grounds, creating new living monuments rooted in community, regeneration, and the promise of flourishing futures. The project is a vivid example of how museums and heritage sites can move beyond sustaining to creating - shifting from showing the world to actively shaping it.

Morag Myerscough’s installation turned Housesteads into a living, interactive canvas, co-created with local schools, refugee groups, and young people with learning disabilities. After the exhibition, hand-painted placards and sculptural elements were repurposed into community spaces, giving the work a second life and continuing to foster connection, creativity, and belonging.

From independent island museums to major heritage sites, the same principles apply: design for afterlife, share resources, and commit to leaving communities stronger, not just sustained.

The launch of the AHI exchange platform next year is a step towards embedding this ethos sector-wide. By building cultures of exchange, we can normalise the idea that materials and ideas are not single-use, but part of a longer cycle of value. At the same time, the regenerative museum movement challenges us to look beyond sustainability targets and imagine institutions as active contributors to ecological and cultural renewal.

Museums have always been stewards. Now, they can also be catalysts - regenerating the very futures they exist to serve.