Toward a Circular Economy in the Toy Industry: The Business Model of a Romanian Company

Abstract

Nowadays, more and more business organizations are encouraged to find ways to produce high-quality products that are offered to users for their temporary enjoyment and then redistributed or sent to the next user pending. This is done without being conditioned to believe that we need to own something, use it for certain functions for a limited amount of time, and then throw it away. Toys are a perfect candidate for this approach. Given the lack of case studies explaining how companies can design and implement a circular economy in practice, especially in the toy industry, this study aimed to develop a case study based on Evertoys, a start-up operating in Romania, which is a country where the circular economy is only in an infancy phase. This study’s objective was to analyze this business model from the circular economy perspective. Regarding the methodology, the work followed the research strategy of the case study, which was developed by analyzing the opportunities and challenges of this toy-as-a-service model and taking into consideration the components of the Business Model Canvas. Our findings indicated the presence of driving factors, as well as barriers, in the implementation of circular economy practices.

Collaborating on ESG consulting, reporting, and communicating education: Using partner maps for capability building design

“…It also reveals different levels of stakeholders (from local to global), as illustrated in Figure 1 by the y-axis. Other canvases were considered (Hofmann et al, 2017;Daou et al, 2020;Lagrasta et al, 2021;Lauten-Weiss and Ramesohl, 2021;Salvador et al, 2021;Albastroiu Nastase et al, 2022); however, they focus more on designing specific business models or solutions for specific problems and thus are not suitable for this study.…”

Uncovering the trends and developments in subscription business models through bibliometric analysis

“…Case study (Anderson, 2000;Huynh, 2022;Mhalla et al, 2020;Nastase et al, 2022;Olla and Patel, 2002;Rowse, 2003;Smits and Nikdel, 2019) Best Practices Analysis (Focacci et al, 2003) Descriptive statistical analysis (Chun, 2020;Herbert and Thurman, 2007;Li, 2022;Pauwels and Weiss, 2008;Poltronieri et al, 2013;Schroter and Tite, 2006;Subramanian et al, 2021) Analysis of Online Reviews (Xu, 2020) Regression analysis (Bj€ ork and Solomon, 2012; Kim et al, 2020;Łobejko and Bartczak, 2021;Pompe et al, 2018;Punj, 2015;Setterstrom et al, 2018;Titch, 2003) Citation Analysis (Bj€ ork and Solomon, 2012)…”

“…These examples indicate the importance of managing customer experiences and offering value-added services that satisfy their changing needs and preferences (Mhalla et al, 2020). Businesses that have effectively combined digitalisation with subscriptions have moved one step ahead by incorporating circular economy practices in order to gain a competitive advantage while minimising their environmental impact (Nastase et al, 2022). By applying these practices, such as sharing, environmental sustainability and waste reduction, models such as fashion-based subscriptions powered by digital innovation have seen growth and productivity (Huynh, 2022).…”

Integrating the Circular Economy in Forming the Future Naval Engineers

“…1). The stages of the circular economy were set by the European Union in the program "Towards a circular economy: A zero waste program for Europe" [1,12].…”