By integrating product life cycle into the developement process, ecodesign enables the environnemental improvement of the product to be. The combination of user centred design proposition and life cycle thinking allows us to propose a method for use phase integration in ecodesign. This method is built on new models to represent product use that are compatible with ecodesign specificity. Based on the product model, the use phase model, which is connected to the distribution and end-of-life phases, facilitates the attachment of product use to the complete life cycle. Context model aims at possitionning the product use environmental performance according to influencing parameters related to the user and it environment. Environmental assessment is made based on the use scenario, a combination of the three previous models. This assessment enables to adapt the improvements strategies to the specificity of a product use phase. A case study has been perform to illustrate the capability of the new proposal to ecodesign a refrigerator for Brazil and for France.
PhD Student : Lucie DOMINGO Grenoble University, 2010 Directors : Daniel BRISSAUD et FabriceMATHIEUX Partners : ADEME; Région Rhône Alpes