Decarbonizing Manufacturing is not Playtime: LEGO Installs Solar at New Virginia Site

Plastic construction toy maker LEGO is intending to decarbonize its carbon footprint by installing 22 MW of ground-mounted solar energy at its manufacturing facility in Chesterfield, Virginia by this summer.

LEGO Group says the solar array will include more than 30,000 panels spread across 80 acres. The company also intends to install more than 10,000 rooftop solar panels on top of its buildings at the Chesterfield complex.

“These initiatives are key to increasing our use of renewable energy and support our ongoing commitment towards more sustainable operations,” said Jesus Ibanez, General Manager of LEGO Manufacturing Virginia, in a statement.

LEGO’s work on its new “carbon-neutral” manufacturing plant in Virginia is nearly completed four years after the company announced its plans. The 1.7-million-square-foot Chesterfield facility may cost $1 billion to build, according to reports.

LEGO is installing the solar to match its manufacturing emissions footprint at the manufacturing site, according to reports. The new production plant will be the company’s seventh factory globally and second in the Americas.

The project is using mass timber which can help sequester carbon instead of releasing it.

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Last year, the company reported it nearly tripled spending on sustainability spending last year compared with 2022, LEGO Group CEO Niels Christiansen wrote in a corporate statement. Nearly half of the materials purchased to make LEGO’s famous bricks last year were certified “mass balance”—an international standard on sustainable, traceable supply chains, the CEO noted.

With that, LEGO reported that about one-third of raw materials utilized in the previous year were made up of renewable resources, which is double the portion in 2023, according to the report. These include newly introduced elements such as materials containing 20% artificial marble kitchen worktops.

LEGO Group has promised to increase sustainability investments to US$1.4 billion over three years. The emissions goal is to reduce total greenhouse gases (GHG) 37% by 2032.

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