{"id":149529,"date":"2025-11-03T14:32:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T13:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/?post_type=ricerca&p=149529"},"modified":"2026-02-03T14:36:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T13:36:39","slug":"149529","status":"publish","type":"ricerca","link":"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/research\/149529\/","title":{"rendered":"eKoala: Transitioning Towards a Sustainable Business Model in the Toy Manufacturing Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n

Founded in 2005, eKoala is an Italian company born from an intuition of Daniele after becoming a father. As a past researcher in neuroscience, he was aware of the adverse impacts of Bisphenol A and phthalates contained in toys on children’s cognitive development. This reflection gave Daniele and his sister Beatrice the idea to set up a company manufacturing cool, safe and environmentally friendly toys. The added value is provided by the use of an innovative material, sourced from bio-based feedstock and potentially biodegradable. The COVID-19 pandemic situation, combined with the high cost of material supply, led the company to a challenging situation in 2020. In a meeting with a passionate consultant, Daniele asked her: What’s wrong with our business model? Inspired by Gloria, Beatrice and Daniele decide to rethink their business model. Aside from the considerable investments in innovative materials and processes, eKoala needs new business logic to ensure its long-term positioning. The case evidences how sustainable business models require a new mindset and way of doing business, going beyond the border of a single organisation to embrace multiple collaborations along value chains and use innovation as drivers for more reliable processes and operations. This case challenges students to reflect on the complexities associated with creating sustainable businesses. Moving from strategy to operations, the case reveals the necessity of considering sustainability as a horizontal factor that permeates all company units and stages of the value chain. As a consequence, the case inspires a discussion on the role of existing accounting systems in capturing this complexity and its capacity to measure multiple values.<\/p>\n

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Target audience<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    \n
  • Undergraduate, postgraduate and executive education courses.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
    <\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n
    Teaching objectives<\/strong><\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n
      \n
    • Understand the business model concept<\/li>\n
    • Explain the aim and use of Osterwalder and Pigneur\u2019s business model canvas<\/li>\n
    • Explore the limitations of Osterwalder and Pigneur\u2019s business model canvas in
      \nsustainability-oriented contexts<\/li>\n
    • Introduce system and life cycle thinking in sustainability transition management<\/li>\n
    • Discuss the design, implementation and validation of a sustainable business
      \nmodel on a real case, while using dedicated canvases that address sustainability
      \nas a whole<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"template":"","ricerca-tipologia":[404],"ricerca-area":[300],"ricerca-tag":[503,306,330],"ricerca-autore":[449,562,616],"class_list":["post-149529","ricerca","type-ricerca","status-publish","hentry","ricerca-tipologia-case-study-en","ricerca-area-accounting-and-finance-en","ricerca-tag-business-model-en","ricerca-tag-circular-economy-en","ricerca-tag-sustainability-en","ricerca-autore-angelo-paletta","ricerca-autore-eleonora-foschi-2","ricerca-autore-selena-aureli-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\neKoala: Transitioning Towards a Sustainable Business Model in the Toy Manufacturing Industry | BBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/research\/149529\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"eKoala: Transitioning Towards a Sustainable Business Model in the Toy Manufacturing Industry | BBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Abstract Founded in 2005, eKoala is an Italian company born from an intuition of Daniele after becoming a father. As a past researcher in neuroscience, he was aware of the adverse impacts of Bisphenol A and phthalates contained in toys on children’s cognitive development. This reflection gave Daniele and his sister Beatrice the idea to […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/research\/149529\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BolognaBusinessSchool\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-03T13:36:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/research\/149529\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/research\/149529\/\",\"name\":\"eKoala: Transitioning Towards a Sustainable Business Model in the Toy Manufacturing Industry | BBS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-11-03T13:32:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-03T13:36:39+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/research\/149529\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/research\/149529\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/research\/149529\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Ricerca\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/research\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"eKoala: Transitioning Towards a Sustainable Business Model in the Toy Manufacturing Industry\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/\",\"name\":\"BBS\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"eKoala: Transitioning Towards a Sustainable Business Model in the Toy Manufacturing Industry | BBS","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/research\/149529\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"eKoala: Transitioning Towards a Sustainable Business Model in the Toy Manufacturing Industry | BBS","og_description":"Abstract Founded in 2005, eKoala is an Italian company born from an intuition of Daniele after becoming a father. As a past researcher in neuroscience, he was aware of the adverse impacts of Bisphenol A and phthalates contained in toys on children’s cognitive development. 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