Lego is going green. That means green bricks, green playsets, green packaging and little green Lego men will eventually be everywhere – though they won’t necessarily be the colour green.
The Denmark-based toy company recently announced it will invest 1 billion Danish Krones (more than $185 million) over the next 15 years in an effort to develop more environmentally sustainable materials for its products and packaging. Lego’s CEO and president called it an “exciting and daunting challenge” for the company.
Lego says it will use most of that money to found the Lego Sustainable Materials Centre at its headquarters in Billund, Denmark, where researchers will look into developing eco-friendly Lego bricks and packages. The facility will be set up in 2015 and 2016.
“This is a major step for the LEGO Group on our way towards achieving our 2030 ambition on sustainable materials,” Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO and president of the company, said in a statement.
He added that Lego has been taking steps toward reducing its environmental impact since 2013, with this latest move aimed at making the company’s building blocks more sustainable.
“We are accelerating our focus on materials,” Knudstorp said.
Lego produced more than 60 billion “elements” in 2014 alone, the company said.
Lego also announced it plans to hire more than 100 “specialists within the materials field” over the next few years to help with the initiative, which will also include collaborative projects with experts from other companies.
“Our mission is to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow,” Lego Group owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen said in the statement.
Knudstorp did not get specific with his company’s definition of sustainable materials.
“There is no common definition of sustainable material,” Knudstorp said. He added that material composition, source and disposal practices all play into Lego’s sustainability criteria.
“When we search for new materials all of these factors must be considered,” he said.
