Circular Arts Network (CAN)
About this good practice
Circular Arts Network (CAN) is a new Sharing Platform created to support the arts by helping artists to reuse and recycle unused materials easily and to enable donating organisations of unwanted materials to support the arts. It is administered by Sculpture Placement Group (SPG), a Community Interest Company based in Scotland. SPG finds ways to make cultural resources last longer, benefit more people and be more sustainable.
CAN grew out of a need to cope with storage of art works and materials and now offers arts materials for use within the Arts sector.
A number of stakeholders were involved in setting up CAN including Zero Waste Scotland, Creative Carbon Scotland and the Scottish Contemporary Art Network. Intensive business support was delivered by Circular Gasgow, which is part of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. A small grants was also received from Santander bank.
Having only been operational since August 2020 the platform is still relatively new but has to date 400 registered members and seen 340 transactions. Estimate carbon savings to date is only 275 kg, but with a projection and growth target of 3 tonnes in the first 1.5 years.
Most items are listed for free of charge, some are sold at a low price. Donations from users are requested. A ‘Friend of CAN’ scheme is available for individuals and organisations to make donations and gain recognition for their financial donations.
Individual artists and theatre companies are currently the main users.
Resources needed
The platform was set up with small donations and grants, including
€4,000 own funds, €3,000 raised small grant funds. 4 people from the SPG donated their own time. The most expensive cost was the web designer.
Evidence of success
Having only been operational since August 2020 the platform is still relatively new but has to date 400 registered members and seen 340 transactions. Estimate carbon savings to date is only 275 kg, but with a projection and growth target of 3 tonnes in the first 1.5 years.
Potential for learning or transfer
There are already aspirations to make the platform available to artists in Madrid. Problems encountered with this include the need to examine options to enable international addresses to be added. As a concept the potential for transfer to other regions should be feasible. Work is now ongoing to look at geographic expansion within the UK on a city by city basis.
Further information
Website
Good practice owner
The Sculpture Placement Group (SPG)