At the recent World Bio Markets conference in Amsterdam, LEGO Director in Materials Department S\u00f8ren Kristiansen said the company has been making slow but steady progress toward its goal of making its LEGO bricks from sustainable materials by 2030. S\u00f8ren described a handful of properties required by a new material, including strength, clutch power (\u201cability for bricks to snap together tightly while also being easy to separate\u201d), and color fastness (resistance to fading) that match those of LEGO\u2019s currently used acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). However, while LEGO mentioned that it is working with various partners to develop a new polymer, the company did not hint at what materials it was testing. Given Lux\u2019s projected growth of the biopolymer market anticipated over the next decade (see the report \u201cGlobal Biopolymer Outlook 2026: Forecasting Growth in the Next Decade\u201d [client registration required]), we decided to highlight the materials that LEGO is likely considering for its bricks:<\/p>\n
Acrylonitrile butadiene lignin (ABL) \u2013 Lux Take: Positive: In 2016, the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) announced a novel thermoplastic, ABL, that replaced the styrene component of ABS with lignin. In replacing styrene with lignin, ORNL was able to develop a material with an improved toughness over ABS. While ABL is likely to fulfill all of LEGO\u2019s performance requirements, it lacks in the sustainability angle that LEGO is targeting, as the acrylonitrile and butadiene monomers are both produced from petroleum-based sources. However, ORNL does aim to develop a 100% renewable material in the future. Given ABL\u2019s emphasis on performance over ABS, LEGO would be smart to partner with ORNL to develop a 100% renewable polymer by 2030.
\n\u200bPolyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) \u2013 Lux Take: Wait and See: Although PHA has, thus far, shown minimal progress in improving materials properties, developers are currently working to significantly scale up capacity, growing from 103 KMT in 2016 to 560 KMT in 2026. While that does not guarantee that LEGO would be able to help develop a PHA that can fulfill the requirements for its bricks, there will be opportunity to develop a PHA with improved materials properties by 2030. Moreover, Italian-based Bio-on independently developed its \u201cminerv super toys\u201d that bear a striking resemblance to LEGO\u2019s iconic bricks. While these toys, in their current state of development, likely do not fulfill LEGO\u2019s stringent materials requirements, they do suggest that LEGO can develop a useable PHA by 2030.
\nPolylactic acid (PLA) \u2013 Lux Take: Caution: Similar to ABS, PLA is a thermoplastic polymer. Moreover, as one of the most developed biopolymers today with a capacity of 430 KMT in 2016, PLA has already been demonstrated in various applications, such as utensils and 3D printable filaments. Given PLA\u2019s similar process-ability to ABS and its high capacity today, LEGO is likely considering PLA as a potential polymer for its future bricks. However, given the poor performance demonstrated by PLA in applications thus far (see the webinar \u201cThe New Face of Bio-based: How Performance Enables Sustainability in Tomorrow\u2019s Products\u201c), we only anticipate it to grow at a CAGR of 3.2% over the next decade, reaching 590 KMT in 2026. Thus, LEGO is unlikely to be able to successfully develop PLA with sufficient performance, even by 2030.<\/p>\n
Like many other potential users of bio-based polymers, LEGO faces a long journey to adoption of a fully \u201csustainable\u201d brick. However, LEGO is smart to emphasize performance to enable sustainability in its bricks of the future, as this gives them the best chance of success. Readers interested in successfully adopting biopolymers in future products should follow in LEGO\u2019s path and focus on performance instead of merely highlighting sustainability.<\/p>\n
By: Gihan Hewage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the recent World Bio Markets conference in Amsterdam, LEGO Director in Materials Department S\u00f8ren Kristiansen said the company has been making slow but steady progress toward its goal of making its LEGO bricks from sustainable materials by 2030. S\u00f8ren described a handful of properties required by a new material, including strength, clutch power (\u201cability […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5847,5829],"supplier":[2904,3643,2437],"class_list":["post-42474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-bioplastics","tag-economy","supplier-bio-on","supplier-lego-group","supplier-oak-ridge-national-laboratory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42474"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=42474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}