Danish Toymaker Lego announced on December 8, 2021, its plans to develop a new production facility in Vietnam to meet the rising demand for its products among children across Asia. The $1 billion project will be the toy brand’s second Asian factory after it opened one in China in 2016. Lego has doubled its earnings in the region since 2019. “Growth in China and Asia is fantastic and we can see that over time that we will need more capacity,” said Chief Operations Officer Carsten Rasmussen. The statement emphasizes the growing middle class and the increasing number of births in the region compared to more mature European and North American markets. The move is the latest in Lego’s decade-long strategy of placing production close to key markets, which has helped rein in costs and protect it from external factors. “It gives us shorter delivery time to our customers and make us able to react quickly on demand but it of course also makes us more resilient,” Rasmussen said.

The factory will be Lego’s first carbon-neutral facility, as it attempts to match the energy consumption with solar power from panels on its roof and from a nearby farm. Construction is scheduled to start in 2024. According to Rasmussen, the company will employ more than 4,000 workers, a “significant addition” to the company’s yearly production of roughly 100 billion bricks. Although Lego still makes bricks out of oil-based plastic, it has vowed to use sustainable materials by the end of 2030.