Sustainable Business Management Report: Moose Toys Case Study

This report assesses the sustainability practices of Moose Toys, an Australian toy manufacturer, focusing on its Brisbane branch. It identifies key issues such as ineffective waste management, inefficient plastic recycling, and high carbon emissions. The report proposes a closed-loop production system based on industrial ecology principles, cradle-to-cradle design, and waste-equals-food concepts to enhance resource utilization and minimize environmental impact. Recommendations include eco-efficient waste management through recycling, dematerialization to reduce material usage, carbon footprint reduction strategies, water conservation measures, and the adoption of biodegradable materials like bioplastics. The report further suggests specific actions related to land and biodiversity management to reduce the impact on aquatic animals and soil fertility. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments to aid students in their studies.

Sustainable Business Management
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author Note

Table of Content
Part A:........................................................................................................................................3
Description of the organization..............................................................................................3
Selection of the segment........................................................................................................3
Preparation of an Input-output chart......................................................................................0
Identification of major causes behind lack of sustainability..................................................1
Part B:.........................................................................................................................................2
Designing a closed loop production system for the organizational segment........................2
Recommendations or transformation to sustainability...........................................................5
Part C:.........................................................................................................................................8
Reference list............................................................................................................................13

Part A:
Description of the organization
The Moose Creative Management Pvt. Lid., popularly known as moose toys is
referred to an Australian owned toy design, development as well as distribution company
which was founded in the year 1985. Moose products are sold in more than 85 countries and
the company is currently considered to be the fifth largest toy manufacturer of Australia and
fourth largest in the United States. In the year 2016, ‘Shopkins’, the product line of the
mentioned company has been provided with the best toy brand in LasVegas. Apart from
Shopkins the product line of Moose toys includes Mighty Beanz, Beads, Aqua Sand, The
Trash Pack, The Grossery Gang, Little Live Pets, Betty Spaghetty and Fur Babies World. The
toys of Shopkins mainly include miniature item characters. The chief materials used by the
company to manufacture toys include cloth and plastics. Other material used for
manufacturing the dolls include stone includes wood, cornhusks, wax, porcelain and celluloid
(Doppelt 2017). Being the operational manager of Moose Toys, Brisbane branch, my purpose
of conducting the research is to understand the sustainability issues faced by the company and
provide recommendations in order to eradicate the identified issues. Considering the fact that
the environmental concern of the population of developed countries like Australia have got
enhanced due to the rapid environmental degradation resulting from unsustainable business,
conducting a sustainable business has become highly crucial not only for obtaining the good
will of the consumers but also for enhancing the consumer loyalty and early revenue of the
mentioned organization.
Selection of the segment
The Moose Company deals with manufacturing the toys and delivering the same to
retail shops along with directly sell the toys to the consumer through their own store outlets.

Baseline
Management
Middle
Management
Upper Management
Director Organisation Head
General Manager
Recruitment
Human Resource
Management
Operational
Management
IT support
Accounts
Facility and
administration
Training Manufacturing
Health and
safety
Logistics
Marketing and
sales
Research and
Development
Cleaning
Considering the fact the company is facing several sustainable issues associated with their
manufacturing of toys, the segment selected for transforming into sustainable business
includes the manufacturing department.
Figure: Section of departments and segments of operations
Source: (created by author)

Running head: SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
For sustainable development, multiple departments of the organization will be involved
namely Human Resource Management, Logistics, Manufacturing, Research and development
and cleaning department. Logistics department can improve the sustainability of the business by
increasing the inbound material quality. Research and development can increase the quality of
the product prototype to minimize the production time emission. Manufacturing department can
utilize most efficient production cycle to reduce emission, waste and by-products. The HRM can
train the employees and aware them about the environmental efficiency in the business process
and how to minimize the negative impacts of the respective operations.
Preparation of an Input-output chart
The following table represents the names of input, output and by-product materials with
their collective percentage. The productive outputs indicate the output materials, which can be
recycled or reused. The by-products are not reusable and cannot be recycled. However some of
the by-products can cause direct environmental pollution and some are bio-degradable materials.
Therefore, the study will only includes the by-products which are not productive outputs. The
productive outputs are excluded from this sustainability study.
Inputs Productive outputs By-products
Name Percentag
e
Name Percentage Name Percentage
Electric 10 Plastic Caps 25 Disputed
products
10
Petroleum 5 Plastic
Structure
20 Solid waste 5
Row plastics 30 Painted body 25 Chemical
waste
5
Paint 15 Packaging 10 Carbon 10

1SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
emission
Plant
machinery
5 Outbound
products
10 Synthetic
waste
20
Furniture 2 Thermal
energy
5 Bio-
degradable
material
10
Vehicle 5 Automation 5 GHG
emission
10
Input lines 2 Thermal
emission
10
Output lines 2 Synthetic
waste
20
Extrusion lines 2
Land 5
Organic
materials
2
Synthetic
Materials
5
Water 5
Identification of major causes behind lack of sustainability
The chief reason behind the lack of sustainability of the mentioned organization includes
ineffective waste management system, inefficient plastic recycle process, high amount of non-
degradable byproducts from the manufacturing system and high carbon a well as thermal
emission during the production procedure. When it comes to waste management of the
mentioned company, the origin of the system includes production of too much waste. Being a
highly popular company, a huge number of toys are manufactured by Moose toy per day. Among
the total amount of wastes, more than 60 percent of the wastes are non-biodegradable (Kurdve et
al. 2015). These wastes include plastic materials, wires and batteries. Due to ineffective waste
management system, the company is imposing several impacts on the environment of Australia.
For instance, the huge amount of plastic waste generated are either dumped in the dumping

2SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
ground or thrown into water bodies. This in turn, is impacting the life of aquatic animal
adversely along with enhancing water population and water borne diseases. Along with that
plastic wastes along with wires and batteries being non-degradable material are reducing the
quality as well as fertility of the soil.
Part B:
Designing a closed loop production system for the organizational segment
As per the industrial ecology, the output materials should have the consumable materials
for nature that will further help to grow natural resources. These natural resources can be
collected for further industrial use in toy factory. Therefore, the close loop production system
must ensure the quality of the disposal that should be bio-degradable (Doppelt 2017). Apart from
that industrial ecology will help the factory to reduce its waste by recycling the reusable
products. It needs a filtration and separation procedure after the manufacturing process. This
process will separate the main products, reusable waste and non-recyclable disposals.
On the other hand, waste equals food model allow the industrial operation and product
cycle to ensure that the disposed materials is biologically degradable. This properties help the
by-products to be consumable as a food products after the decomposition and bio-degradation.
Cradle to cradle design enable the product cycle management to balance the post processing
natural cycle of the materials and the industrial collection and use of materials from natural and
artificial resources (Kurdve et al. 2015). For this the close loop should ensure that the by-
products are taking time to be naturally recycle for reutilisation. For maintaining natural

3SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
capitalism, the used and consumed products will be collected from the human society. It will
help to reduce the resource utilisation while increasing the waste management efficiency.
Therefore, it will help to increase the business capital by reducing the operational costs.

4SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Manufacturing
Inbound
materials Outputs
Packaging and
distribution
Reusable
Materials
Non-Recyclable
Disposal
Recycling
Market
West collection
Natural
Resource
Environment
Artificial
Resource
Filtering and
separation
Storage Storage
Natural
decomposition
Human Use
Animal
Consumption
Nutrients Biological
degradation
Figure: Close loop production cycle

5SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Source: (created by author)
From the close loop cycle which is plan considering principles of industrial ecology,
cradle to cradle design, waste equals food, bio-mimicry and natural capitalism, it has been clear
that the ultimate operational sustainability can be increased though abiding by this closed loop
structure. In this structure, after the manufacturing process the filtering and separation process is
used to separate recyclable wastes and products from the outputs. However, the cycle should be
ensure that the non-recyclable disposals are biodegradables (Hörisch, Freeman and Schaltegger
2014). After the separation, the reusable materials are recycled. At the same time, the used
material is also collected from the human disposals. These materials are also recycled to be
reusable. The post consumed materials and the reusable by-products both are recycled for
making reusable resources. On the other hand, the disposals are followed a natural degradation
procedure to be the natural resources for industrial use. All these components and operational
cycles can collaboratively work to make a sustainable close loop production system .
Recommendations or transformation to sustainability
In order to deal with the above mentioned sustainability related issues, the Moose Toys company
needs to follow the bellow mentioned recommendation.
I. According to researchers, Eco-efficiency has been proposed to be one of the chief tools to
promote a transformation from unsustainable development to sustainable development
(Starik and Kanashiro 2013). It is based on the concepts of creating more goods as well
as services while using fewer resources along with creating less waste and pollution. In
order to ensure an eco efficient waste management, Moose toys can recycle its wastes.

6SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
The method involve in recycling the waste includes separation of recycle and non-
recyclable wastes. Considering the fact that majority of the plastic wastes are recyclable,
recycling will not only ensure eco efficient sustainability but will also reduce the
manufacturing costs of the student. Effective usage of plastic recycling tool can enhance
the efficiency of the waste management system.
II. The term dematerialization is defined as the reduction of total material as well as energy
while manufactuization of a product or service in order to reduce the environmental
impact of the same. According to the researchers, a close relation exists between
dematerialization and recycling of products (Baumgartner and Rauter 2017). For
instance, if plastic waste products are recycled and used for toy manufacturing purpose,
the overall usage of plastic of Moose toys will get reduced considerably. Apart from that
the resources can be saved while extraction of materials, by improving the eco-design of
the products or by implementing technological innovations during the production
process.
III. In order to reduce carbon footprint, the management can initiate test project together with
the suppliers in order to create best solution to access the impact of carbon emission
during the manufacurization process.
IV. In order to reduce the wastage of water during manufacturing of toys, the management
should regularly monitor and eradicate pipe leaks and improve water performance in the
supply chain. Beside that the manufacturing staffs of the Moose Toys Company should
be trained in order to use water efficiently and reduce unnecessary usage of water. Along
with that, recycling and reusage of water should also be enforced in order to ensure
effective water management.

7SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
V. In order to reduce thy usage of non-degradable products, the management can replace the
raw materials with their biodegradable alternatives. For instance, instead of using
plastics, bioplastics that are being made from natural materials like cornstarch can be
used. This plastics, made from Polyactide acid (PLA) is not only biodegradable but also
saves up to two third of the energy that is needed to make traditional plastic (Doppelt
2017). Thus this plastics can also help the management of the Moose toys in reducing
their carbon emission. In spite of the fact that the usage of bioplstics will enhance the
manufacturing cost of the company by a little, usage of the material has the potential to
enhance its consumer base and goodwill.