Lego plans to replace oil-based bricks with renewable plastic as profits soar

Lego is ditching fossil fuels for a more planet-friendly material.

This week, the toy maker announced it was eliminating the use of oil in its bricks and replacing it with renewable materials and recycled plastic.

The company will do so by decreasing the percentage of oil in its bricks while adding more certified renewable or recycled materials. Of course, the bricks that make up Hagrid’s Hut, the Wicked Set, and Fortnite Battle Buses will cost more to produce. The company says it will be paying up to 70% more for the new material, a certified renewable resin. “This means a significant increase in the cost of producing a Lego brick,” CEO Niels Christiansen told Reuters.

But that doesn’t mean Lego sets will cost more to buy. “With a family owner committed to sustainability, it’s a privilege that we can pay extra for the raw materials without having to charge customers extra,” Christiansen added.

The company had previous plans to use recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for its classic building blocks; however, it soon realized that using it would produce even more pollution than the current material.

“After more than three years of testing, we found the material didn’t reduce carbon emissions,” a spokesperson told CNN in 2023, adding that the brand is “not abandoning [its] effort to make oil-free bricks” and remains “fully committed to making Lego bricks from sustainable materials by 2032.”

Lego ended up testing more than 600 materials over the past few years. Finally, the company says new deals with producers of the new Lego-manufacturing material have it on track to ditch fossil fuels completely by its goal date of 2032.

Lego’s path toward sustainability has been tricky, which seems to underscore just how much of a challenge environmental shifts can be for the major toy makers of the world who have depended on cheap plastic for decades. Finding a material that works well to create a product of equal quality while also not harming the planet is not an easy feat, but Lego is anything if not innovative.

While some newer toy makers are committed to environmentally friendly toys, like Green Toys, which are made from 100% recycled materials, other classic toy makers are aiming to move away from oil-based plastics, as well. Barbie maker, Mattel, has pledged to ditch plastic for recycled, recyclable, or bio-plastic material by 2030 and bring down plastic packaging by 25% (by 2030).

It’s hard to imagine a less-plastic version of Barbie, but as fossil fuel emissions continue to drive climate change, toy makers know they simply have to evolve. Barbie by Barbie . . . brick by brick.