Lego, Danish manufacturer of the popular plastic bricks for toy applications, set aside 1 billion Danish Krone for research, development and implementation of new, sustainable, raw materials for manufacturing as well as packaging the play materials.

President and CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp said this is a major step for Lego on the way to achieving its ambitious goals for sustainable materials.

Knudstorp said the group already has taken important steps to reduce its carbon footprint and leave a positive impact on the planet by reducing the packaging size, introducing FSC–certified packaging as well as investing in an offshore wind farm.

“Now we are accelerating our focus on materials,” he added.

As part of the effort, a Lego Sustainable Materials Center will be established this year at group headquarters in Billund, Denmark, where employees will work toward finding alternative materials. Satellite functions are planned to be set up in other countries, and the center also will collaborate and develop partnerships with relevant external stakeholders and experts.

Lego manufactured 60 billion of the plastic elements in 2014, and finding alternatives to the materials currently used, which it did not specify, would significantly reduce the products’ impact on the planet, the Danish group said.

As an example of existing cooperations, Kundstorp pointed to the Climate Savers partnership Lego signed with WWF in 2013, which has targets on developing a sustainable materials strategy and was renewed this past spring with a view to better assessing the overall sustainability and environmental impact of new bio-based materials.