LEGO to scale up use of renewable plastics in its bricks, with goal of replacing fossil fuel-based materials by 2032
LEGO announced plans Wednesday to scale up its use of renewable plastics in the production of its signature bricks, marking a shift away from its reliance on fossil fuels. LEGO has set 2032 as its target date to reach a goal of using entirely renewable and recycled materials.
All LEGO bricks are made from resin, which includes a mix of virgin plastics made from fossil feedstocks, as well as renewable materials. The company says it is working to increase the percentage of certified renewable or recycled materials, which means less oil would go into the bricks that are used to create everything from Titanic replicas to Hogwarts Castle.
LEGO says it has tested over 600 different materials over the last eight years in an effort to make the bricks more sustainable – with varying levels of success. The company uses a production method to manufacture its bricks known as "mass balance," which involves mixing virgin fossil fuels with renewable materials, like cooking or plant oils.
In the first half of 2024, an average of 22% of the materials used for its products came from "renewable and recycled sources," up from 12% in 2023, LEGO says.
The transition to greener materials will come at a cost, however. According to Reuters, LEGO is paying 70% more for the renewable resin. But the Danish company says it won't affect the prices customers see at the toy store.
"The costs of these materials will not be passed on to the consumers – it will be absorbed by the LEGO Group on our bottom line," the company said in a statement emailed to CBS News.
The announcement was released as part of the company's earnings report for the first half of 2024. LEGO's revenue increased by 13%, and consumer sales also grew 14%, according to a release provided to CBS News.
"We delivered double-digit growth on the top- and bottom-line and made significant progress on increasing the amount of sustainable materials used in our products," said CEO Niels B. Christiansen in a statement.
Over 300 million metric tons of plastic are produced each year globally, but only a small fraction of that is recycled, according to the Department of Energy. And of the 48 million tons of plastic generated in the U.S., only 5% to 6% gets recycled. Plastic is notoriously difficult to recyle because it comes in different varieties that can't be mixed together. It's also more expensive to recycle plastic than it is to create virgin plastic.
Oil and gas companies that produce plastic say they are making strides towards a renewable future. ExxonMobil, for example, has paired up with cities like Houston to perform "advanced recycling". However, as CBS News' senior national and environmental correspondent Ben Tracy points out, the project has been slow to get off the ground and has received pushback from critics who say the method isn't a viable solution to the plastics problem.
The industry has been called out in the past for misleading recycling claims.
Melissa Valliant, communications director for Beyond Plastics, said LEGO should look for other materials to make its bricks, or ditch the material altogether given the negative health and environmental hazards associated with them.
"Recycled plastic can be even less safe than traditional plastic when it comes to health risks," she said in an email to CBS News, pointing to findings from a United Nations report. "Replacing the virgin plastic in LEGO bricks with bioplastic is unlikely to be safer and more environmentally friendly," she said.
The famous plastic LEGO bricks have been around for 75 years. Originally called "Automatic Binding Bricks," the company's trademark toy was invented in 1949, after the company got its first plastic injection-molding machine.
LEGO was founded in 1932 in Denmark by Ole Kirk Kristiansen. The name is an abbreviation of the Danish words "leg godt," which means "play well" in English.