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LEGO

Lego to turn all its bricks ‘green’ by 2030

Danish toy giant Lego has committed to carbon neutral production within the next ten years.

Lego to turn all its bricks 'green' by 2030
Photo: Ida Guldbæk Arentsen/Ritzau Scanpix

By 2030, all Lego bricks will be manufactured from sustainable plastic made from materials such as sugar cane or wood, replacing fossil fuel-based plastics, newspaper Børsen reports.

“This is not an easy task, and we have only come some of the way,” Lego CEO Niels B. Christiansen told the newspaper.

The wealthy family which owns Lego is willing to invest billions in the project over the next ten years, Christiansen also said.

The company in 2015 set aside 1 billion dollars to research production of sustainable Lego blocks, but only around two percent of the blocks currently on the market are made from sustainable materials.

So far, Lego has succeeded in making bushes and leaves for Lego trees from a sustainable material made of sugar cane.

Although only a few percent of Lego's products are made of sustainable materials, Christiansen said much can be done in the next few years to make the toys more sustainable.

“I think we will see gradual progress, and then some big leaps,” he said.

“We are testing lots of different materials right now, and we have to test many that do not work before we find something that works,” the Lego CEO told Børsen.

A number of other Danish companies have also announced programmes to become more sustainable by 2030.

Wind turbine maker Vestas wants to be CO2 neutral by 2030, while pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk aims to be climate neutral on operations and transport in 2030.

Arla, Danish Crown and Maersk have all announced plans to be CO2 neutral by 2050.

Lego is owned by the Kirk family, one of Denmark's most wealthy families.

READ ALSO: Danish researchers may have found a new, green version of Lego

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BUSINESS

Denmark’s toy giant Lego offers staff bonus after bumper year

Danish toymaker Lego, the world's largest toymaker, Denmark's Lego, said on Tuesday it will offer its 20,000 employees three extra days of holiday and a special bonus after a year of bumper revenues.

Lego is rewarding staff with a Christmas bonus and extra holiday after a strong 2022.
Lego is rewarding staff with a Christmas bonus and extra holiday after a strong 2022. File photo: Ida Guldbæk Arentsen/Ritzau Scanpix

Already popular globally, Lego has seen demand for its signature plastic bricks soar during the pandemic alongside its rapid expansion in China.

“The owner family wishes to… thank all colleagues with an extra three days off at the end of 2021,” the company said in a statement.

The unlisted family group reported a net profit of more than 6.3 billion Danish kroner (847 million euros) for the first half of 2021.

Revenues shot up 46 percent to 23 billion kroner in the same period.

It had been “an extraordinary year for the Lego Group and our colleagues have worked incredibly hard,” said the statement, which added that an unspecified special bonus would be paid to staff in April 2022.

Lego, a contraction of the Danish for “play well” (leg godt), was founded in 1932 by Kirk Kristiansen, whose family still controls the group which employs about 20,400 people in 40 countries.

READ ALSO: Lego profits tower to new heights as stores reopen

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