Danish toy maker LEGO Group announced on Tuesday that it will invest 1 billion Danish kroner to boost research on sustainable materials.
The investment will result in the establishment of the LEGO Sustainable Materials Centre, which will be based at the LEGO Group's headquarters in Billund, Denmark, the company said in a statement.
The center will include all current functions and employees to find alternative materials, and more than 100 specialists within the materials field are expected to be recruited during the coming years.
"This is a major step for the LEGO Group on our way towards achieving our 2030 ambition on sustainable materials," said Joergen Vig Knudstorp, CEO and President of the LEGO Group, in the statement.
In 2012, the LEGO Group first shared its ambition to find and implement sustainable alternatives to the current raw materials used to manufacture LEGO products by 2030.
"There is no common definition of a sustainable material. Several factors influence the environmental sustainability of a material - the composition of the material, how it is sourced and what happens when the product reaches the end of its life. When we search for new materials all of these factors must be considered," Knudstorp said.
The structure and organisation of the LEGO Sustainable Materials Centre will be developed in the course of 2015 and 2016.
The LEGO Group is a family-owned company with products sold in more than 130 countries. It produced more than 60 billion Lego blocks in 2014 and uses 6,000 tons of plastic per year in production. (1 U.S. dollars = 6.639 Danish kroner)
