Lego looks for the brick of the future: less oil and more intelligent

LondonThe future of Lego is played out in two pieces. One is literal: the famous Danish manufacturer is looking for ways to ensure its iconic plastic brick depends less and less on oil and generates 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 cure ending up being worse than the problem.

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

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

The new strategy involves combining elements that allow for the incorporation of renewable or recycled raw materials into the production chain, even if they end up mixed with materials that come from fossils. 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, warned Christiansen.

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

Some estimates from various specialized publications (the British Plastic Federation) suggest that every year it makes tens of billions of plastic pieces —about 60 billion could be a reasonable estimated figure—, and this colossal volume explains the scale of the environmental challenge the company faces, which in 2025 emitted 2.19 million tons of CO₂ equivalent. To put it into context, it might be worth mentioning that in 2023, Catalonia emitted 38.36 million, 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. In 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 without the growth of the business also causing its carbon footprint to grow. The company also defends a form of sustainability inherent to the product: its durability. The pieces can be taken apart and rebuilt indefinitely, passed from parents to children or between friends and remain 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 same piece remains in good use.

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 of what can be called the digital universe. Here enters the scene the smart brick, a new piece with luminous elements that seeks to expand the building experience.

The product was launched earlier this 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 "gaming system and platform."

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

The transformation also involves the adult market. Lego offers products that exceed 300 pounds and has expanded the range of passions or hobbies it wants to reach. This diversification has been accompanied by a proliferation of major franchises and collaborations. The 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 collectibles brand than a toy? Can these two souls coexist? The company has launched 330 new products and attributes the strength of the brand to its ability to connect with children, teenagers, and adults.

For now, the numbers prove the head of the Danish company right. Lego has presented a first half much better than specialists expected. Net profit has grown by 32%, exceeding 1.114 billion euros. Excluding the impact of exchange rate fluctuations, the increase would have been 26%.

The profits are astronomical. Lego's great challenge is not to prove that it can sell more bricks. The challenge is to prove that it can manufacture 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.