Museums must embrace a regenerative model of practice

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 can 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 new, 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 to reduce waste and carbon emissions while creating 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 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 social, cultural and ecological impact. 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.

Stromness Museum in Orkney, for example, 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 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.

In Argyll’s Kilmartin Museum, Lizzie Rose’s Carbon Legacy and Forest installation marks a compelling shift from sustainability toward regeneration. Central to the work were 375 living oak seedlings, transforming the museum into a site of remembrance and a seedbed of future possibility. 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.

Finally, Morag Myerscough’s installation The Future Belongs To What Was As Much As What Is turned Housesteads Roman Fort in Northumberland 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.

These examples show that regenerative practice is not defined by size or geography. 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 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.

Eric Langham is the founder of consultancy Barker Langham and a trustee at the Association for Heritage Interpretation