ABSTRACT
Ecodesign, taking the environment into account during a product's design or enhancement phase, involves a holistic, multi-criteria approach to the environment. In terms of the enterprise, launching an ecodesign process means evolving the outlook of environmental management from regulatory restrictions to strategic challenges. Ecodesign is the cornerstone of industrial ecology. Ecodesign, like industrial ecology, draws on the great laws that govern the biosphere, such as the interdependence of the elements, the cycles that govern them and the matter with which they are made. One of the essential components of ecodesign is a systemic approach. The biosphere is regulated by a set of cycles of varying duration, from instantaneous changes to millennial revolutions. The cycle symbolises the idea of time, the speed at which products renew. One of the major axes of ecodesign is durability: in other words, slowing down renewal in order to preserve resources and reduce impacts.
