Lego聽is pumping millions of dollars into its quest to find new, sustainable materials for its popular聽plastic toy bricks. While the company鈥檚 goal with this initiative is to build better toys, it may end up shifting the plastics industry away from its oil-based roots. 鈥淲e expect both established and emerging companies within the bio-based plastics industry to look closely at how their technology may fit in with Lego鈥檚 goal.鈥� Lux Research associate Jennie Lynch told Environmental Leader.
Last year Lego said it would spend 1 billion Danish Krone ($150.5 million) to develop new聽sustainable materials for its plastic Lego toys聽and聽packaging materials. This includes the establishment of the Lego Sustainable Materials Centre in Billund, Denmark.
The company has already聽hired at least 100 engineers聽to develop alternatives to petroleum-based materials and is making good on its promises. It鈥檚 a big deal for Lego, which聽Fast Company calls 鈥渢he Apple of toys,鈥� moving from near bankruptcy in 2003 to briefly beating rival Mattel for a stint in 2014 to become the biggest toy manufacturer in the world.
Amid its financial success, the company has taken efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, such as聽investing in wind farms聽to offset the energy used in factories and achieve its goal of using 100 percent renewable energy by 2020.
Between 2013 and 2014, Lego also reduced the size of its boxes by an average of 14 percent to use less cardboard, Lego spokesperson Kathrine Bisgaard Vase told Environmental Leader. 鈥淚n 2015, this amounted to approximately 7,000 tonnes less cardboard used,鈥� she said. 鈥淚n 2015, we also reached the highest level yet of recycling waste, at 93 percent, and reached our goal of using 100 percent Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper and packaging in our operations.鈥�
While the company is working to reduce its global footprint across several initiatives, finding a sustainable material from which to manufacture Legos is a major one 鈥斅燼nd the company鈥檚 sustainable materials investment is a big deal for the industry as well.
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