As Lego has found out, the world isn't ready to give up plastic

Predictions of the demise of the fossil fuel industry are based almost wholly on energy. In future, goes the argument, we are going to use clean energy and so we will be able to leave fossil fuels in the ground as ‘stranded assets’, as Mark Carney would call them.

It is proving hard enough to decarbonise the energy sector, but it tends to be forgotten that at present we rely on coal, gas and oil for many other things, too, such as fertilisers, a reducing agent in the steelmaking process and the manufacture of plastics. While there may be substitutes in theory for some of these uses, the experience of Lego demonstrates how difficult it is to replace oil.

We soon saw during the pandemic how difficult it would be to run the modern world without plastics

Two years ago, as part of its programme to become entirely fossil fuel-free by 2030, Lego proudly announced that it had found a substitute for acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), the material from which is currently makes its bricks. Instead,