As of 2024, the LEGO company had produced an estimated 1.1 trillion total pieces over 93 years — roughly 140 pieces for every person in the world. One in four U.S. households purchased LEGO products last year, and the company has seen sales increase despite an overall decrease in the toy market. LEGO has gained worldwide popularity since its founding in 1932. Still, the company relies heavily on virgin fossil fuels — fuels the company uses for the first time to make its products — contributing to climate change.
In 2014, LEGO garnered criticism from Greenpeace International, a campaigning network founded in Canada that focuses on climate change-related issues. They published a video on YouTube depicting oil rising and flooding multiple scenes built out of LEGO pieces.
In the last decade, LEGO has attempted to address sustainability concerns raised in Greenpeace International’s video. According to LEGO, 33% of the resin used to make all LEGO pieces in 2024 came from renewable sources. LEGO makes parts like tires using materials from old fishing nets and recycled engine oil.
Transparent parts such as windows, lightsabers and windscreens now contain 20% recycled materials from artificial marble kitchen worktops. Additionally, all new LEGO sets now contain paper bags to hold parts instead of the plastic bags used between the late 1970s and 2021.
Despite these positive steps toward reducing their carbon footprint and reliance on virgin fossil fuels, the company still uses roughly 2.5 million barrels of oil annually, according to Energy Now.
It is difficult to accurately measure the impact of the new recycled materials on LEGO’s greenhouse gas emissions. “In analyzing the environmental sustainability of plastics, you need to compare the total emissions with recycling plastic versus the total emissions in starting with virgin materials, specifically petroleum,” science teacher Geoff Ruth said. “Plastics are tricky to recycle, so sometimes the total emissions are less when you don’t recycle plastic and start from scratch.”
In an effort to become more sustainable, LEGO has committed to becoming a carbon-neutral company by 2050. According to CarbonNeutral, companies can achieve carbon-neutrality by reducing their net carbon emissions to zero. “[LEGO] definitely … need[s] to find a way to balance [their] emissions, because creating billions of plastic blocks probably isn’t the most … sustainable,” Ajay Haddad ’26 said.
While reducing their carbon footprint could be an important step in LEGO’s quest towards sustainability, some warn that carbon neutrality can be difficult to accomplish. Companies often use offsets instead of fully removing emissions.
“[LEGO] is not gonna be able to remove all of its carbon emissions, period. They either have to do direct air capture to offset the emissions or finance wind [energy] or finance a tree farm, which is a hot mess,” Ruth said. “I think net zero is currently greenwashing for most companies.” Greenwashing refers to companies falsely marketing themselves as eco-friendly.
Despite LEGO’s recycled material initiatives and goal to achieve carbon neutrality, the company produces roughly 100,000 metric tons of plastic each year. That being said, this number is just a tiny percentage of the plastic produced globally each year.
Despite environmental concerns, many still see LEGO as a positive and creative product. “[I] think it’s great the creativity that [LEGO] promotes,” Aiden Gettys ’28 said.
Still, Lego is not without positives. Gettys said, “I think especially because of how much plastic they produce, [LEGO has] this responsibility to make sure their product is sustainable.”