The LEGO Group has scrapped projects to make bricks from recycled drinks bottles after research concluded the process would have led to higher carbon emissions over the product’s lifetime rather than reduced emissions.
The world’s largest toymaker has, to date, invested $1bn into researching solutions to reduce its emissions and drive greater sustainability across its product portfolio, including increased focus on bio-based material for the production of its plastic bricks.
Already, the company has launched a small number of components made using bio-based plastics, such as its small LEGO trees.
The Danish company began research into a potential transition to recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) in 2021, but found it needs around 2kg of petroleum to make 1kg of plastic. ABS is used in around 80% of LEGO bricks.
Tim Brooks, LEGO’s head of sustainability likened the idea to “trying to make a bike out of wood rather than steel,” referring to how the non-oil-based material was softer and demanded extra ingredients for durability.
On top of this, changes to manufacturing environment, extending to everything in LEGO’s factories to scale-up rPET use would have led to a higher carbon footprint than sticking with oil-based plastic.
Instead, the LEGO Group aims to make each part of ABS more sustainable by incorporating more bio-based and recycled material. The company’s chief executive, Niels Christiansen recently confirmed LEGO will triple spending on sustainability to $3bn a year by 2025 while promising not to pass higher costs to consumers.
Last week, Christiansen joined CEOs from 26 Danish businesses to support UN Secretary General Guterres’ call for ambitious and credible commitments and clear and transparent plans to “rescue the SDGs”, the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, deemed the building blocks to a prosperous and sustainable future.
The pledge coincided with the UN General Assembly in New York this month, where world leaders convened to discuss the climate crisis.
Last month, the LEGO Group pledged to work with the Science Based Targets initiative to achieve net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. The pledge is an extension of its existing near-term climate target to reduce GHG emissions by 37% by 2032 from a 2019 base, previously approved by the SBTi.
