Lego divorces Shell following Greenpeace campaign against Arctic drilling plans

A polar bear perches on a Lego iceberg in Greenpeace’s popular YouTube video mocking Lego’s links with Shell. (IMAGE COURTESY OF GREENPEACE)

Lego mini-figures stand in London to protest against Shell drilling for oil in the Arctic, while a Lego police helicopter keeps them under surveillance. (PHOTO BY VICKI COUCHMAN/GREENPEACE)

Greenpeace showed its ability to sway corporate policy when the Danish toymaker, Lego, said Oct. 8 it would not renew a longstanding relationship with Royal Dutch Shell to promote its shell-shaped logo on its plastic bricks.

Following a Greenpeace campaign that used Lego’s tiny plastic figures and bricks to mock Shell and its oil-drilling plans in the Arctic, Lego said Oct. 8 that it would “not renew the co-promotion contract with Shell.”

Since the 1960s Lego has built play sets for items such as gas stations which featured the Shell logo.

“We are determined to leave a positive impact on society and the planet that children will inherit,” Lego CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp said in his Oct. 8 statement.

At the same time, Knudstorp said Lego doesn’t “agree with the tactics used by Greenpeace that may have created the misunderstanding among our stakeholders about the way we operate.”

Greenpeace recently released a YouTube video, called “Lego: Everything is NOT Awesome,” mocking the title song of the hit Lego movie.

The video, which has received nearly six million hits, shows an Arctic made of Lego bricks which ends up being destroyed by an oil spill.

And the video also asks viewers to sign a petition urging Lego to sever its ties with Shell.

Greenpeace said Oct. 9 that one million people signed that petition, part of its greater “Save the Arctic” campaign, which wants to see a development-free sanctuary established around the North Pole.

Lego’s decision to break ties with Shell came weeks after Shell submitted plans to the United States for offshore exploratory drilling near Alaska.

In 2013, Shell suspended a similar offshore drilling program after many mishaps and mechanical failures.

“This is a major blow to Shell. It desperately needs partners like Lego to help give it respectability and repair the major brand damage it suffered after its last Arctic misadventure. Lego’s withdrawal from a 50-year relationship with Shell clearly shows that strategy will not work,” Ian Duff, a Greenpeace spokesperson, said in its Oct. 9 news release.

“The tide is turning for these fossil fuel dinosaurs that see the melting Arctic as ripe for exploitation rather than protection. The message should be clear: your outdated, climate wrecking practices are no longer socially acceptable, and you need to keep away from the Arctic or face being ostracized by society.”