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Lego Ends Shell Partnership Under Greenpeace Pressure 252

jones_supa writes Since 1960s, we have been seeing the oil company Shell logo being featured in some Lego sets, and Legos being distributed at petrol stations in 26 countries. This marketing partnership is coming to an end, after coming under sustained pressure from Greenpeace. The environmental campaign, protesting about the oil giant's plans to drill in the Arctic, came with a YouTube video that depicted pristine Arctic, built from 120 kg of Lego, being covered in oil. CEO of Lego, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, wants to leave the dispute between Greenpeace and Shell, and the toy company is getting out of the way.
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Lego Ends Shell Partnership Under Greenpeace Pressure

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  • Pixie Dust (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 09, 2014 @07:52PM (#48107719)

    Because Legos are made out of pixie dust, not oil.

    • That was what they had on special Lego blocks, when I was a boy...

      I think yanks called 'er Exxon, by then.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 09, 2014 @08:38PM (#48107983)

      Wait till someone tells GreenPeace that their boat needs oil to run.

      • by camperdave ( 969942 ) on Thursday October 09, 2014 @08:41PM (#48108005) Journal

        Wait till someone tells GreenPeace that their boat needs oil to run.

        Well, they can run it on whale oil instead.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) *

        You joke, but their newest ship actually has sails! [wikipedia.org]

        From Wikipedia:

        The ship is also designed to be one of the "greenest" ships afloat, and to showcase this quality, it runs primarily using wind power, with a 55 m mast system which carries 1255 sq meters of sail and is backed up by a "state-of-the-art hybrid". On board the ship can store up to 59 cubic meters of greywater and blackwater, avoiding the need for disposal at sea. All materials, from the paintwork to the insulation, have been chosen with a view

        • Re:Pixie Dust (Score:4, Informative)

          by ihtoit ( 3393327 ) on Friday October 10, 2014 @12:08AM (#48108839)

          any idea how much yield acreage is involved in producing just one gallon of biodiesel?

          Here's a clue: soybeans yield 127 gallons per yield acre, but that's not what's used because soybeans grow too slowly. Oilseed yields about a quarter the amount of raw oil (pre refinement) but it grows five times faster. If you stop looking at it there, oilseed looks like a good deal. BUT, then you come to refining it into biodiesel where your net yield drops to about 8% of what you'd get with soy.

          127 gallons is about ten tanks in a small family car. How many eleven gallon tanks are rolling about in the United States? Several tens of MILLIONS? A total conversion to biodiesel would require every square foot of land area on the planet given over for oilseed production.

          • by DrXym ( 126579 )
            Biodiesel can be made by recycling vegetable oil from fryers. It has to be filtered and blended with alcohol. Presumably Greenpeace could use that if they wished although I expect pragmatism and the reality of operating a boat out of many ports means they have to take what's available.
          • A total conversion to biodiesel would require every square foot of land area on the planet given over for oilseed production.

            A total conversion to biodiesel would require only a small percentage of our available desert land given over for algae production. We can use seawater pumped inland with thermal solar. The land in which we are interested is low-lying and predominantly unused. The process produces not only biofuel feedstock with high oil content, but also fertilizer and salt. It requires only minimal initial outlay and utilizes technolgies proven by the USDoE [nrel.gov] (i.e. "with our tax dollars) in the 1980s.

            In other words, everyth

        • (It still uses diesel engines for maneuvering in port, of course -- I'm honestly surprised they don't run the engine on biodiesel. Maybe it's a logistical issue?)

          Provided that your seals (which may well be flare fittings, no seals!) and lines and pumps can all handle bio, which for anything modern is not exactly a foregone conclusion but doesn't really cost you any extra if you shop around, you can run any diesel without half-assed fuel quality sensors on any proportion biodiesel. Sadly, many modern diesels do have those (as opposed to none, or a good one) but I would be fairly surprised if they didn't spec to be able to run it.

          • Yep. For example, my old VW runs on biodiesel just fine, and all I had to do was replace the fuel injector return lines with Viton ones. (I might have to rebuild my fuel pump with Viton seals too, eventually.)

      • Re:Pixie Dust (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jandersen ( 462034 ) on Friday October 10, 2014 @03:27AM (#48109381)

        People shouldn't let their prejudices against Greenpeace, 'tree-huggers', 'hippies', climate change or whatever blind them to the fact that:

        1. Big, polluting corporations need to be challenged. The oil-industry is not really your friend, and I doubt the changes we have seen in pollution levels since the 50es would have happened without somebody putting serious pressure on them.

        2. Whether you like Greenpeace or not, their example shows us that it is possible for ordinary people to make a difference, if they are able to work together. Is that not something worth knowing?

        • Re:Pixie Dust (Score:5, Insightful)

          by carnivore302 ( 708545 ) on Friday October 10, 2014 @07:49AM (#48110061) Journal
          Yes, but not the way greenpeace does it. They have been going at it like a bunch of terrorists and the end result is that for many people (definitely including myself) any organisation targeted by greenpeace is getting more, not less, sympathy.
      • by flyneye ( 84093 )

        Nah, just tow them out in a rowboat. The Russians will pick them up when G.P. starts flingin poo at them.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

          Well, yeah, actually. It's working out really well for Germany, and they are only 1/3rd the way through the transition.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Because Legos are made out of pixie dust, not oil.

      Thanks for your insight AC. Because anyone opposed to drilling for oil in the artic of course, must be opposed to use of all oil products, produced anywhere in the world for any reason.

    • by voss ( 52565 )

      Maybe greenpeace has enough good sense not to target one of the most popular toys in the world
      when there are much easier polluter targets like shell

    • Re:Pixie Dust (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Urkki ( 668283 ) on Friday October 10, 2014 @02:22AM (#48109207)

      Because Legos are made out of pixie dust, not oil.

      While production of oil has its own huge environmental problems, at least Lego bricks themselves are very stable, so they are good for storing carbon and keeping it off the atmosphere and oceans. And if they were made from, say, metal instead of plastic, the environmental impact of production wouldn't be any less, I bet.

    • Re:Pixie Dust (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dave420 ( 699308 ) on Friday October 10, 2014 @03:06AM (#48109319)
      Lego are actively researching alternative materials from which to make their blocks, so your criticism is merely illustrating your lack of knowledge of the subject, and not a well-thought-out attack on Lego.
    • Re:Pixie Dust (Score:4, Insightful)

      by flyneye ( 84093 ) on Friday October 10, 2014 @07:32AM (#48109997) Homepage

      I suspect some other motive. I mean, really, who could give a shit what Greenpeace thinks? They're a fucking joke!
      I think something went sour between Legos and Shell, so Legos is just blaming Peengrease for benefit of the press.
      Greenpeace never did anything of any real consequence except add comedy to news programs.

  • by McFortner ( 881162 ) on Thursday October 09, 2014 @08:18PM (#48107877)
    How can they be "getting out of the way"? There are only two choices, a) stick with Shell and snub Greenpeace, or b) dump Shell and please Greenpeace. There is no middle ground where they can please both.
    • by camperdave ( 969942 ) on Thursday October 09, 2014 @08:45PM (#48108035) Journal
      False dichotomy. They could snub both. Dump the Shell pieces and release a whaling set.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They didn't pick Greenpeace. They picked removing a hate campaign against them.

      I find both the campaign and the result rather disturbing. They state they are against arctic oil and targets Shell. However while Shell is kind of unharmed from this (in the big picture), Lego might have taken a serious blow to sales and they have nothing to say about oil drillings at all. Legally Lego can sue Greenpeace for lost profits, but surely that would cause even more bad publicity.

      Don't get me wrong. I do care about the

    • by DrXym ( 126579 )
      Well they could dip a few seabirds in crude oil and then clean them up again.
    • And the worst part about it is that Shell employees probably buy more Legos than everyone who even knew that Greenpeace was running a campaign against Lego over this.
  • THIS JUST IN (Score:4, Insightful)

    by confused one ( 671304 ) on Thursday October 09, 2014 @08:19PM (#48107879)
    This just in: LEGO are made from refined petroleum products. OMFG NO. The horror.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Gees, I just thought it was a problem when you burned it or used it disposable products that collect in the environment. So no apparently oil used in long lasting kept through generations Lego is the problem. I heard it was especially bad as carpet mines, I never knew you and your moderators had thought, carbon chain products could be dangerous even when you 'DID NOT FUCKING BURN IT'.

    • At least it's a long-lasting use. That's only a little crazy. Burning it just to move excessively heavy conveyances down the road at ludicrous speeds and turning it into pollution is insane. Oil is too valuable to burn. If we burn it all up, we'll have to make Lego out of inferior bioplastics

  • by MatthiasF ( 1853064 ) on Thursday October 09, 2014 @08:20PM (#48107881)
    ...to religious bullying.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by stepho-wrs ( 2603473 )

      Religious? When did Greenpeace become religious?

    • You might want to look up the purpose of the PR department. The corporation doesn't care, it has no feelings to hurt. Shareholders demand to err on the side of caution.

      I would much prefer the citizens bully the corporations than the other way around!

      Of course the best solution would be the government to step in and say "no advertising logos in any childrens toys", which is ultimately best for the children. The movie, tv and videogame industry all use fake products to tell their stories all the time. No reas

      • Of course the best solution would be the government to step in and say "no advertising logos in any childrens toys", which is ultimately best for the children. The movie, tv and videogame industry all use fake products to tell their stories all the time. No reason why toys should have real corporate logos in them. Pure mind control of the youth and should be stopped.

        Think of the children!

  • Sooooo... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jpellino ( 202698 ) on Thursday October 09, 2014 @08:20PM (#48107883)
    Tesla Supercharger stations from now on?
  • I'm pretty sure nobody at LEGO or the producers of the movie signed off on any of that!
  • Fuck Greenpeace (Score:5, Insightful)

    by IWantMoreSpamPlease ( 571972 ) on Thursday October 09, 2014 @08:55PM (#48108093) Homepage Journal

    they are as bad as PETA. Lego are children's toys, leave your goddamn petty politics out of them.

    • Re:Fuck Greenpeace (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Harlequin80 ( 1671040 ) on Thursday October 09, 2014 @09:25PM (#48108215)

      This. 100 times this.

      If you have a bone to pick with an organisation target that organisation. Going for non related entities because they make a softer target is wrong. The end does not justify the means. Where I work we have had death threats directed at us because some of our clients are in the mining and oil & gas space. There is nothing that can justify that type of action.

      • Re:Fuck Greenpeace (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 09, 2014 @10:13PM (#48108403)

        > Going for non related entities because they make a softer target is wrong.

        You appear to be laboring under the false belief that a company that has a promotional relationship with another company is 'non-related.' Shell is an oil company, they were paying lego to run a promotional campaign for them. That's about as related as they could get without pumping the oil themselves.

        • No I absolutely see them as non related. A related organisation, you could argue, would be Schlumberger who do the drilling for Shell on a number of their projects. Or Sinopec which they have a joint venture with in the Arrow CSG fields. If Shell runs an ad campaign in a news paper does that make the news paper a related organisation?

          Seriously how are you modded Informative? I assume that every advertising company is a related entity then? Google must be hell in bed with all those big nasty companies the

      • Re:Fuck Greenpeace (Score:4, Interesting)

        by radtea ( 464814 ) on Friday October 10, 2014 @02:38AM (#48109249)

        If you have a bone to pick with an organisation target that organisation. Going for non related entities because they make a softer target is wrong. The end does not justify the means. Where I work we have had death threats directed at us because some of our clients are in the mining and oil & gas space. There is nothing that can justify that type of action.

        Greenpeace and other anti-science groups like the Republican Party all take this stone-age "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and "the friend of my enemy is my enemy" approach to human relations.

        Roy Baumeister, in this truly excellent book Evil [amazon.com] discusses idealism as a cause of evil, and Greenpeace are a pretty good representation of the logic he describes: if you believe yourself to be purely and ideally good, then anyone opposing you and anyone who helps them in any way must be purely evil. And what lies, threats and violence aren't justified in the name of fighting pure evil?

        Baumeister uses actual cases (and lots of them) to show how false-to-fact this kind of thinking always is, and how much moral thinking is actually about delusions of evil rather than evil as it is done. Anyone even mildly interested in making the world actually better, rather than just feeling good about themselves while helping to make things worse, would do well to read this book. It does more for the study of good and evil than three thousand years of fact-free philosophical imaginings.

        • So it seems we have the following actors:
          Shell: Lawful Evil, Lord of the Dark Resource
          Greenpeace: Chaotic Good, Sea Ranger
          LEGO: Lawful Neutral, Merchant

          And what you're saying is:
          Good > Evil
          But!
          Lawful > Chaotic

          So it follows that:

          2x Lawful - 1x Evil > 1x Good - 1x Chaotic
          = 2x Lawful - 1x Good > 1x Evil - 1x Chaotic

          Meaning
          Lawful > (Good + Evil - Chaotic) / 2
          Good Good - Chaotic - 2x Lawful

          So for your assumption to be true, assuming a neutral moral stance of Good == Evil, it would have to be that

        • Greenpeace and other anti-science groups

          Greenpeace is not at all anti-science. They are more than willing to use it in order to point out just how badly we are fucking ourselves. Are you actually this ignorant, or are you simply attempting to impugn their character in order to attack them, as part of a strategy of legitimizing your shit behavior?

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

        Lego are big on sustainability and protecting the environment: http://aboutus.lego.com/en-gb/... [lego.com]

        Greenpeace is pointing out that their stated goals and values are incompatible with the actions of Shell, a company they associate with. Lego have accepted this and decided to do something about it.

        Right target, reasonable argument based on Lego's stated position and goals, reasonable outcome.

    • Greedy charlatans (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Greenpeace has strayed so far from their roots. They are nothing but a bunch of greedy charlatans now.

    • Re:Fuck Greenpeace (Score:4, Insightful)

      by n3r0.m4dski11z ( 447312 ) on Friday October 10, 2014 @12:57AM (#48109019) Homepage Journal

      I am no greenpeace fan, but a corporation putting a logo on a child's toy in order to influence their future purchasing decisions though brain washing, is kind of asking for whatever the fuck they get, don't you think?

    • LEGO Brick collectors are now hoarding all Shell branded bricks. Prices for said bricks are now sky rocketing as collectibles.

    • Fuck Greenpeace they are as bad as PETA. Lego are children's toys, leave your goddamn petty politics out of them.

      Fuck Lego they are as bad as Shell. Lego are children's toys, leave your goddamn brainwashing advertising out of them.

      Now more SRSLY, I own a crapload of Lego. I don't think Fuck Lego. (Ow!) But I do think that putting Shell advertising on Lego blocks is a form of brainwashing, just like back when gas stations used to give away toy cars festooned with logo stickers. Get the kids identifying with the brand, programmed to worship the logo, before they're even vaguely capable of understanding the ramifications

    • Setting aside the question of whether Greenpeace's tactics are right or wrong, there shouldn't be Shell logos in Lego blocks.

      Lego are children's toys, leave your goddamn advertisements and product placements out of them.

  • Next steps (Score:5, Insightful)

    by arielCo ( 995647 ) on Thursday October 09, 2014 @09:06PM (#48108123)
    • * No little plastic cows, because global warming.
    • * No jet airplanes, because they pollute so much.
    • * Nothing related to Japan, because whaling.
    • * No circus sets because poor animals.

    I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

    • by Irate Engineer ( 2814313 ) on Thursday October 09, 2014 @09:20PM (#48108185)

      Gosh, I guess we should just sit around and bang rocks together and grunt...until someone from the rock protection lobby sends a cease and desist letter for banging rocks. Or until the chimpanzees claim infringement on their "entertainment systems" patents.

      • by plover ( 150551 )

        Gosh, I guess we should just sit around and bang rocks together and grunt...until someone from the rock protection lobby sends a cease and desist letter for banging rocks.

        Perhaps if we banged the rocks together after carefully placing the lawyers' heads between said rocks? Kuh! Kuh! Kuh!

      • Bingo. De-industrialization has been the goal of the Marxist movement since it became a movement. If you read Marx you'll see that he essentially advocates for an egalitarian agrarian society, because it is the only logical conclusion to the idea of ensuring equal distribution of the means of production. Once Dude A (by way of technological advance) has a better way of producing something than Dude B, you can no longer ensure "equality". In the Communist Manifesto he even laments the discovery of Americ

    • by Nkwe ( 604125 )

      • * No little plastic cows, because global warming.
      • * No jet airplanes, because they pollute so much.
      • * Nothing related to Japan, because whaling.
      • * No circus sets because poor animals.

      I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

      Good, but not for the reasons listed. I always thought Legos were better before all the "special" bricks and items. "Better" as in better for the imagination. Some of the sets these days are almost entirely custom pieces that are not useful for building things other than the picture on the box.

      Get your special pieces off my lawn.

      • Depends how far you want to go back - there were special bricks when I had the castle range back in the early 1980's, and that wasn't the first special range either.

  • by kellymcdonald78 ( 2654789 ) on Thursday October 09, 2014 @11:52PM (#48108787)
    Just means Octan has an energy monopoly for all those LEGO cars, trucks and planes now
    • I have a circa 1986 gas station (6378) and a circa 1988 race track (6395) with the logo, but shortly thereafter they went to the fictional Octan (looks like 1992 going by set listings). Besides ending distribution of sets at Shell locations, this isn't going to effect much else.
  • Lego got pissed off at the UK treasury who had used Lego minifigures as part of the UK campaign against Scotland's independence from the UK, see Scottish independence: Lego dropped from Treasury Buzzfeed [bbc.co.uk]

    Lego, at the time, said they were politically neutral and would not allow their brand to be associated with any political stance.

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