Useful lifetime of educational materials should be defined by their continuing ability to help meet defined learning objectives. More often lifetime is compromised by changes in the educational environment that do not specifically relate to the capacity of the material to assist learning. Approaches for integration of materials into the learning environment can be designed to maximise useful lifetime of materials against potential barriers created by, for example, instances of technological change. In this study, the impact of different approaches is demonstrated by examining the development of 163 learning objects, based on several licensed collections of streaming video procured for cross-­sector educational use by the UK Lifesign project. Constraints relating to sustainability work within the limitations of a short-­term project environment are specifically considered.