by Dick Hall-Sizemore
There is more good news for the Commonwealth. As reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Governor Youngkin announced on Wednesday that the Lego Group will invest at least $1 billion to build a new manufacturing facility in Chesterfield County. It would be Lego’s only manufacturing facility in the United States.
The company projected that the 1.7 million square foot plant would create more than 1,700 new jobs over a period of ten years.
The company currently has a manufacturing plant in Mexico, but, because the United States is a key market, the company wants to shorten its supply chain issues and reduce its overall carbon footprint. Along these lines, the plant will be designed to be “carbon neutral”. To accomplish this, it will use some offsets. According to the news report, “The factory will also be paired with a solar park, which will be built by 2025 and generate the energy needed for the plant to run.” From the news report, it is not clear whether the electricity produced by the solar farm will be used directly by the factory or whether that is one of the offsets. Continue reading