In their provocative 2014 campaign, Everything is Not Awesome,
environmental behemoth Greenpeace publicly confronted
Lego’s historic half century-strong relationship with oil major,
Shell in a bold attempt to terminate their brand partnership.
However, when LEGO unexpectedly kowtowed to that very
demand, their leadership resolutely failed to develop an
adequate long term strategy capable of handling the ballooning
demands involved in appeasing an environmentally ambitious
client base.
While LEGO’s public separation from Shell has since helped the
organization to save face with the ever-growing environmental
movement, their rapid decision to drop its co-branding partner
initially forced the group to recklessly address the issue of
product sustainability without concrete plans to craft organized
environmental messaging, and implementation strategies.
Translated: research suggests that LEGO’s shock decision to fully
sever its historic ties with longstanding companion, Shell was
entirely unnecessary in that it ultimately lacked the necessary
grit to serve environmental purists with a dose of incremental
eco-reality.
BUT LEGO IS SURVIVING — SO, WHAT IS THE ISSUE?
While their financial bottom line is yet to take a substantial hit,
LEGO’s well-intentioned, eco-friendly initiatives, have largely
failed to garner the positive muster they rightly deserve. For
example: in publicly declaring their initiative to produce the
majority of their in-house products from sustainable materials
by 2030, it is easy to see that LEGO is walking the pragmatic walk.
However, if the unambitious incrementalism of LEGO’s
environmental action plan seems to be in line with the pace of
other institutions, does it even matter?
THE TRAJECTORY IS UNAVOIDABLE
LEGO’s snail-paced steps toward enacting bold, environmental
strategies are jarringly incongruent when placed alongside the
blistering, kneejerk decision to drop Shell like a hot potato. In
other words: Bookending any organizational sustainability plan
with an atomic bang at the offset—only then to publicly
announce lackluster, inconsequential details about the plan’s
inherently wearied progress along the way—hardly seems like a
winning strategy for longitudinal success.
More consequentially, when diagnosing the capabilities of other
organization’s ability to deliver on their own environmental
strategies, it seems that LEGO would be wise to pay close
attention to the longitudinal trends of public/consumer fatigue
— especially given the mounting wave of distrust that currently
plagues our global institutions.
WHAT SHOULD LEGO HAVE DONE TO COUNTER GREENPEACE?
Loyalty is everything, and brings with it a welcome feeling of
nostalgia. Had LEGO produced a heartfelt, rebuttal campaign
employing the use of family-focused techniques:
1. The sticking question of brick recyclability would be
nullified. After all, if LEGO bricks lack bio-degradable
capabilities, their product should be marketed as a family
heirloom. Why get rid of something that benefits family
members old and new?
2. Organizational loyalty—an industry imperative—would
have remained at the center of LEGO’s ethos, allowing
them the necessary time to develop a more steadfast
environmental adaptability plan.
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