Lego seeks the brick of the future: less oil and smarter

LondonThe future of Lego is played out in two pieces. One is literal: the famous Danish manufacturer is looking for ways to make its iconic plastic brick less and less dependent on oil and generate fewer emissions. The other is technological: the company wants children to continue choosing its bricks in a world where mobile phones, tablets, and video games compete for their attention. The smart brick, a new piece with luminous elements, is the first major bet in this direction. And the environmental challenge is even more ambitious: to find alternative materials to fossil-based plastic without the remedy ending up being worse than the problem.

"We are only at the beginning," warned Niels B. Christiansen, Lego's CEO, a few days ago, after presenting the results for the first six months of the year. Plastic continues to be the essential element of Lego bricks and oil, its fundamental raw material: in fact, to produce one kilogram of bricks, 2 kilograms of crude oil are needed.

The company had explored a solution that seemed almost perfect: to manufacture the pieces with recycled plastic from bottles. But it ended up abandoning the project when it realized that the process needed to transform that material would have generated more carbon emissions than manufacturing with the usual material.

The new strategy involves combining elements that allow the incorporation of renewable or recycled raw materials into the production chain, even if they end up mixed with materials derived from fossil fuels. Thanks to this strategy, last year, more than half of the content of all materials purchased by Lego was no longer based on fossil fuels or oil. But from now on, every new step will be more difficult, Christiansen has warned.

Here lies one of the contradictions of the model it wants to implement. Because the new strategy –mass balance– does not mean that each brick physically contains a certain proportion of renewable material: what is certified is the quantity of alternative raw material incorporated into the whole process. And Lego continues to manufacture millions of plastic pieces.

Some estimates from different specialized publications (the British Plastic Federation) suggest that it makes tens of billions of plastic pieces every year — around 60,000 million may be a reasonable estimated figure — and this colossal volume explains the dimension of the environmental challenge facing the company. In 2023, Catalonia emitted 38.36 million tons of CO₂ equivalent, according to official data. In Lego's case, more than 99% of its emissions come from outside its own operations, mainly from the supply chain. By 2025, the company already calculated that 52% of the materials it purchased to manufacture its products came from renewable or recycled sources.

The problem, therefore, is not only to achieve a more sustainable brick, but to find a way to continue manufacturing more and more of them without the growth of the business also increasing its carbon footprint. The company also defends a form of sustainability inherent in the product: its durability. The pieces can be dismantled and rebuilt indefinitely, passed from parents to children or between friends, and kept in use for decades. For CEO Christiansen, this reuse is the best form of recycling: there is no need to recover and reprocess the plastic if the piece itself remains in good condition.

Against screens

The other great challenge is the competition for children's attention. Lego does not want to abandon physical play, but rather incorporate some of the stimuli from what can be called the digital universe. This is where the smart brick comes in, a new piece with luminous elements that seeks to expand the construction experience.

The product was launched at the beginning of the year in only six markets and in children's products. The intention is to expand it globally and make it a stable part of Lego's "game system and platform."

Is there any contradiction? Perhaps, because Lego wants to win children back from screens by incorporating technology into toys. The challenge will be to use it to reinforce what makes this construction game unique, not to turn the brick into another digital accessory. The company will also have to enter areas that are not part of its traditional business, such as software and electronics.

The transformation also extends to the adult market. Lego offers products that exceed 300 pounds and has broadened the range of passions or hobbies it aims to reach. This diversification has been accompanied by a proliferation of major franchises and collaborations. The Football World Cup, Formula 1, Harry Potter or K-pop Demon Hunters are recent examples. The strategy, in theory, should allow it to reach new audiences. But it also raises another question: to what extent can Lego depend on third-party intellectual properties and increasingly expensive products without becoming more of a collectible brand than a toy? Can these two souls coexist? The company has launched 330 new products and attributes the brand's strength to its ability to connect with children, teenagers, and adults.

For now, the numbers vindicate the top executive of the Danish company. Lego has presented a first half-year much better than specialists expected. Net profit has grown by 32%, exceeding 1.114 billion euros. Without the impact of exchange rate fluctuations, the increase would have been 26%.

The profits are astronomical. Lego's big challenge is not to prove it can sell more bricks. The challenge is to prove it can make them with less oil, make them attractive enough to compete with screens, and continue to grow. The sustainable brick and the smart brick are different ideas for the same problem: how to reinvent Lego, but with less oil, and without ceasing to be the Lego of always.