Rehoming 3000+ Creative Resources Through the SAIL Resource Hub
Posted News
Originally funded by Arts Council England as a pilot, SAIL’s Resource Hub has grown into a practical circular economy solution for West Yorkshire’s creative and cultural sector.
As of September 2026, the Resource Hub has rehomed 3,299 items and avoided an estimated 98.25 tCO₂e, helping creatives save money, reduce waste and deliver ambitious projects with fewer new materials.
Why the Creative Sector Needed a Resource Hub
Across the creative and cultural sector, sets, props, costumes, exhibition materials and equipment are often used for a short period before being stored, discarded or sent to waste. Arts Council England research into circular economy networks identified a lack of storage and reuse infrastructure as a significant barrier to more circular ways of working.
In West Yorkshire, there was no dedicated hub providing shared reuse infrastructure. Through our network, we also identified practical barriers that stopped organisations and creatives from reusing materials, including limited storage space, difficulties finding available resources, and challenges transporting items between organisations.
In 2025, SAIL received Arts Council England funding to pilot a Circularity Hub that could test whether a practical, sector-led approach to reuse could work at scale. The aim was not only to redistribute materials, but to gather evidence of the environmental, social and economic value of reuse across the sector.
Building a Creative Resource Hub for Reuse
SAIL took a hands-on approach, creating both the infrastructure and the practical support needed to make reuse work in the real world.
First, w secured a physical space, thanks to Skippko and their Blank Canvas scheme, allowing us to establish a dedicated space where resources could be received, stored and rehomed.
Alongside this, we worked with Maraid Design to develop a public-facing website so creatives could easily browse available resources, utilising the open source Circular Arts Network plugin created by the Sculpture Placement Group. Behind the scenes, we built a bespoke inventory and impact-tracking system using Microsoft Power Platform. This allows us to catalogue items, record their journey through the Hub and measure environmental and financial impact.
As the project evolved, we listened closely to the barriers our network continued to face and adapted our offer accordingly.
When affordable workspace emerged as a challenge, we opened the Hub itself as a creative space. Lucky Iris used materials from the Hub to build an entire stage set for a music video filmed on site, while other users have hosted workshops, film projects and community activities in the space.
When transport became a barrier, we introduced Van & Collection Days. By coordinating collections and deliveries across multiple organisations in a single route, we made it easier and more affordable for materials to move around the network rather than ending up as waste. These routes typically connect six to eight organisations and creatives across West Yorkshire in a single day.
Impact of the Resource Hub
The pilot quickly demonstrated demand for a practical reuse service.
Between January and March 2025, the Resource Hub received 293 donated items, rehoming 262 of them and achieving an 89.42% rehoming rate. During that period, the Hub worked with seven donors and 25 recipients, with 82.57% of rehomed items given away and 17.42% sold, helping creatives access affordable resources while avoiding an estimated 2.11 tCO₂e.
The success of the pilot led to further Arts Council England funding to explore how the model could be scaled sustainably.
Since then, the Hub has continued to grow. Latest figures show:
- 3,299 items rehomed to date and an estimated 98.25 tCO₂e avoided
- More than 3,000 items donated and almost 2,000 items rehomed through the tracked system.
- 61 donors and 149 recipients engaged through the Hub.
- An estimated £38,840 worth of resources rehomed.
The Resource Hub is now recognised beyond West Yorkshire. It is listed on the BAFTA Albert Sustainable Suppliers Directory and SAIL has joined the Restage Network, connecting the Hub with other reuse initiatives across the UK to share learning and develop best practice.
More importantly, the Hub has become part of how creative work gets made. From theatre productions and festivals to artists’ studios, film sets and community projects, materials that might otherwise have gone to waste are finding new life in the hands of other creatives.
Testimonial
The idea behind this installation is completely in line with SAIL’s ethos. Having SAIL as a partner to this was invaluable, someone already doing the hard graft of taking, storing, and redistributing items that otherwise would go to waste. The team were super on it, so made the process easy, and their contributions made a massive impact on the project.Sam Caseley, Co-Artistic Director, The Herd Theatre
Who uses the Resource Hub?
The Resource Hub is used by people and organisations working right across the creative and cultural sector. Whether you’re producing a theatre show, building a film set, creating an art installation, running a festival or developing a community project, the Hub provides an affordable and practical way to source materials and give unwanted resources a second life.
Our users include independent artists and freelancers, theatres, film and TV productions, festivals, community arts organisations, museums and galleries. They come to the Hub looking for everything from props, costumes and furniture to exhibition materials, staging and production equipment.
For many users, the appeal is simple: access to affordable materials, practical support and a network of people who believe valuable resources should stay in use for as long as possible. The result is a growing circular economy where creative work can thrive while reducing waste, saving money and lowering environmental impact.
Find Out More
Looking for affordable materials for your next project, or have resources you’d like to keep in circulation?
Explore the Resource Hub to browse available items, donate resources, or find out how SAIL can help your organisation reduce waste and make better use of existing materials.
The Resource Hub is one of the practical ways SAIL supports the creative and cultural sector to become more environmentally sustainable.