Brick-by-colored-brick, Danish toy building block firm – and scourge of barefooted parents the world over – Lego has reached its 100% renewable energy target three years ahead of schedule, the company has announced.
Having embarked in 2012 on a mission to install, own or operate more than 160 MW of renewable energy, the Lego Group last week reached its target following its acquisition of a 25% stake in the 258 MW Burbo Bank Extension offshore wind farm off the coast of Liverpool, U.K.
The wind farm, built by DONG Energy, was opened late last week and its commissioning officially brought Lego up to 160 MW of clean power capacity under its belt. The Danish firm has also commissioned 20,000 solar panels to be installed atop its Lego factory in Jiaxing, China, which will produce an additional 6 GWh of energy per year, which is enough to meet the power needs of 6,000 local households.
The factory is expected to be fully operational this summer.
Lego also owns a 31.5% stake in the 312 MW Borkum Riffgrund 1 offshore wind farm in Germany, and has spent more than $900 million on renewables since 2012.
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Speaking at the wind farm’s unveiling in Liverpool, Lego Group CEO Bali Padda said: “This development means we have now reached the 100% renewable energy milestone three years ahead of target.”
The CEO added that the total clean energy output from all of Lego’s renewable ventures now exceeds the energy consumed across its entire manufacturing fleet, all stores and offices globally.
Allied to its clean energy push is an embrace of energy efficiency technology, such as LED lights. Lego aims to reduce the amount of energy it takes to produce its bricks (of which 75 billion were made in 2016). Over the course of the past three years the amount of energy required to make a Lego brick has fallen by 16%, the company said.
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