As Lego continues its search for sustainable alternatives to virgin plastic, the company has ramped up investment in materials certified according to the mass balance method.
In 2023, 18% of all resin the Danish toy maker purchased was ISCC Plus or RSB certified according to mass balance principles, which translates into an estimated average of 12% of renewable-attributed sources.
Lego said it plans to ‘significantly increase’ its use of mass balance materials in 2024 and beyond, without disclosing by how much. It also expects to become ISCC Plus certified for its use of mass balance materials this year, according to its 2023 annual report.
“We don’t see mass balance as a long-term solution but for now, as technology around sustainable materials continues to develop, we believe it is the best option to stimulate the raw materials market, which in turn will help us to make our products more sustainable,” Lego said in a March 6 statement.
To stimulate the market, Lego is trying to influence manufacturers of mass balanced-certified plastics to invest in increased production capacity, the company’s CEO Niels B. Christiansen told Bloomberg in an interview.
The price tag of that strategy is up to 70% higher than buying fossil-based plastics, but Lego hopes its investment will help accelerate the development of more sustainable materials.
“Now we have decided to make a real effort to influence the industry and speed up the pace of this development,” Christiansen told Bloomberg. “There isn’t enough of the material on the market today, but sometimes things only happen when big players like us start paying a premium for materials.”
The announcement comes as Lego increased spending on environmental initiatives by 60% in 2023 in comparison to 2022. Accelerated spending on ‘strategic initiatives’, amongst other factors, led to a 5% decrease in operating profit to DKK 17.1 billion (2.29 billion). Christiansen said he was pleased with the company’s performance ‘given that 2023 was the most negative toy market in more than 15 years’.
Lego has pledged to invest $1.4 billion in the four years through 2025 on sustainability. Christensen told Bloomberg that Lego won’t pass on the higher cost for renewable-attributed plastic to customers. He believes sustainable resin prices will remain high for years because demand will also grow as supply increases.
“We’re going to become an active buyer in these certified products and help accelerate the industry toward that,” the Lego CEO said. “That money is now helping create supply chains that create sustainable and more green materials and we’re doing it in the hope that it will accelerate the development.”
“We probably thought it was easier to get this done but it’s a giant shift for a chemical supply chain with suppliers and sub-suppliers,” he added.
New materials
In 2021, Lego announced it was testing a prototype brick made with rPET, building on a 2015 pledge to invest on more sustainable replacements for acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), which it uses in about 80% of its bricks.
The world’s largest toy maker ditched the plans in 2023, saying rPET would have required significant changes to its manufacturing equipment and therefore would have led to higher carbon emissions over the product’s lifetime.
After that setback, the company said it learnt that there isn’t one unique solution to the challenges it faces but rather a whole range.
One of its latest solutions is the launch of a new material called arMABS. It is produced using recycled artificial marble, commonly found in kitchen worktops, and from this year it will be used in over 500 different LEGO elements, including all its transparent elements such as light sabres, windscreens, and windows.
The company is also working on a new material ePOM, an acetal resin made from renewable energy and biogenic CO2, the result of an agreement signed last year between European Energy and Novo Nordisk. Lego plans to introduce the material is elements such as its wheel axes ‘soon’.