For over 50 years, Lego has been selling building blocks made from oil-based plastic. The company recently decided to research green materials that could be used to build the bricks instead. By 2030, the Danish toy company aims to eliminate oil-based plastic from its production line.
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Situation: Lego Group Aims to Reduce Its Environmental Footprint
Like many other companies, Lego Group continually looks for ways to improve efficiency and its environmental footprint. That’s why the company announced it would research new materials for its popular Lego bricks. This is not an easy task because it means reinventing a product that has sold well for several decades.
Press officer for Lego Group, Roar Trangback, says, “You could say that it’s a logical place for us to find a way of reducing our environmental footprint … If you look at our CO2 footprint as a company, the majority of our impact comes from offscreen activities — basically what happens before we receive any raw materials in our factory.”
Lego Group has several other environmental projects in place, such as wind farms to offset energy use at its factories. Three-quarters of its carbon footprint still comes from the extraction and refinement of oil for Lego toys, though.
Approach: Lego Researches Plant-Based Material Alternatives
Lego set an ambitious goal to find a sustainable alternative to oil-based plastic by the year 2030. To reach this goal, the company must invest a significant amount of money in research. Lego Group plans to spend $150 million on a new sustainable materials center and add 100 employees who will focus on finding new materials for Lego toys and packaging.
The goal is to make the plastic bricks look and feel exactly like the current oil-based bricks. Senior Director of Environmental Sustainability at Lego Group, Tim Guy Brooks, states, “The ultimate prize would be for us not to notice one brick from the other.”
It’s likely that the bricks will still be made from some form of plastic, just not oil-based plastic. Lego Group continues to examine every possibility, as it wants to settle on a plant-based recyclable material. The company isn’t currently interested in using recycled materials because it can’t be sure which materials and ingredients most recycled plastics include.
Challenges and Impact
Another challenge is that oil prices have dropped significantly, and the current manufacturing practice for Lego bricks is cost-effective. Lego Group wants to come up with a new material for its bricks without increasing manufacturing costs.
Additionally, Lego bricks are currently made from strong materials that don’t bend easily. Plant-based plastics aren’t always as strong and could compromise the quality of Lego bricks.
Lego Group currently makes around 60 billion Lego bricks each year. The bricks are small, but that still adds up to a lot of oil-based plastic. Using a plant-based material would improve Lego Group’s carbon footprint and sustainability significantly.
The company hopes to inspire other companies to move away from oil based plastic as well. It has already taken a substantial step that would scare most companies of Lego Group’s scale.[/show_to]
