Denmark’s Lego Group has signed a memorandum of understanding with an industrial park developer to build a $1bn Lego factory in Vietnam that would be its first factory to operate on a carbon-neutral basis.

If the project goes ahead next year as planned, it would be sited on a 44ha site in Binh Duong province, around 50km north of Ho Chi Minh City.

The developer is the “Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park Joint Venture” (VSIP), a collaboration between Singaporean developer Sembcorp and Vietnam’s Becamex IDC.

The factory will be Lego’s sixth manufacturing site worldwide, its second in Asia and the only one to be carbon neutral.

The plan is for the factory to start operating in 2024.