Sustainable Materials

We’re working hard to find solutions to make our products from more sustainable materials by 2032. In fact, some of the LEGO® bricks and elements you know, and love are already made with recycled and renewable materials! Whether it’s using sugarcane, recycled kitchen worktops or experimenting with fishing nets, we’re leaving no brick unturned in our mission to make our products more sustainable.

Hero lead sustainable materials

LEGO minifigure looking at a LEGO plant

Bio-PE

Since 2018 we’ve been making flexible parts like LEGO flowers, botanical elements, and mini-figure accessories out of bio-polyethylene (bio-PE) which is made from sugarcane. We source this from Brazil using guidance from our partner WWF, and make sure that the sugarcane we buy grows at the same rate as we use it, and doesn’t compromise food security. We make more than 200 different elements from bio-PE and around half of LEGO sets contain at least one of these elements. Sweet!

Two LEGO minifigures, peering through a transparent LEGO windscreen

arMABS

From 2024, our transparent elements, like light sabres, windscreens and windows, include advanced recycled materials from artificial marble kitchen worktops. We will have over 500 different arMABs elements, which will feature in over 60% of our LEGO sets. Clearly genius!

An illustration of a process in a lab where recycled and renewable raw materials are mixed with virgin fossil. The levels of ‘recycled and renewable raw materials’ are equal to ‘virgin fossil’.

Mass Balance

We’ve been purchasing materials using the mass balance approach since 2021. But what is mass balance? Simply put, it’s a way to increase the amount or renewable and recycled input in the raw materials we buy. Our suppliers mix input from virgin fossil sources with certified renewable and recycled sources to produce the material we buy to make LEGO products. Our ambition is that over time the amount of renewable and recycled material used to make LEGO bricks will increase and virgin fossil fuel will decrease.

A LEGO minifigure showcasing strength by lifting two LEGO wheels, resembling a weight

ePOM

We’re designing our robust, rigid LEGO elements – such as our axels – to be made with a plastic called ePOM. The process of making this material involves uses cutting-edge technology to mix renewable energy and CO2 from bio-waste. We hope to start using this new material from 2025.

A LEGO minifigure walking up to a small shed on the side of a lake with ‘Sustainable Materials Team HQ’ on the door

And that’s not all!

Behind the scenes our creative and committed colleagues have been testing over 600 materials in our mission to make our products more sustainable. Some materials will work, others won’t, but any material we use must always meet our rigorous safety, quality and durability standards. Our bricks and elements are manufactured to extreme levels of precision, so that bricks are safe for children and can be passed down from one generation to the next.

3 images signifying the transition from a plastic water bottle into LEGO bricks

Recycled prototype brick

In 2021 we had an exciting breakthrough and created a protype brick made from PET plastic bottles. However, after two years of continuous development it did not deliver the overall carbon reduction required to realise our ambitions.
 
We’re proud of our achievements with the prototype and will apply the learnings as we continue to develop new materials and explore other ways to make our bricks more sustainable.

Everything about our sustainable packaging

Everything about our sustainable packaging