Danish toymaker Lego won’t renew a promotional deal with Royal Dutch Shell to hand out toys to people filling up at its gas stations in light of a Greenpeace campaign that protests against Arctic drilling.
A video by the environmental group showing Lego toys drowning in oil in an Arctic landscape to the tune “Everything Is Awesome” from “The Lego Movie” has been viewed about 6 million times on the YouTube website.
“The Lego brand, and everyone who enjoys creative play, should never have become part of Greenpeace’s dispute with Shell,” Lego Group CEO Vig Knudstorp said in a statement Thursday.
Greenpeace should have a “direct conversation” with Shell, he said.
Efforts to secure new sources of fossil fuels in the Arctic are coming under increasing public scrutiny on environmental grounds. Companies, already drilling for oil and digging for minerals across the Arctic, are expected to spend $100 billion there in the next decade.
