Wearable healthcare electronics are rapidly emerging as a distinct electronics sector in the digital era1–6, offering substantial economic opportunities and crucial medical benefits. However, their interactions with environmental and social systems remain poorly understood7–9, leaving critical sustainability challenges unaddressed. Although current efforts have focused on material-level improvements, broader system-level dynamics remain unexplored. Here we present an integrated systems engineering framework based on de novo life-cycle inventories and diffusion-linked scaling to quantify global eco-footprint hotspots and identify effective mitigation strategies. Cradle-to-grave analysis of representative wearable healthcare electronics (glucose, cardiac and blood pressure monitors and diagnostic imagers) generates full-spectrum environmental impact metrics, identifying warming impacts of 1.1–6.1 kgCO2-equivalent per device. The global device consumption is projected to increase 42-fold by 2050, approaching 2 billion units annually and generating 3.4 MtCO2-equivalent emissions alongside ecotoxicity and e-waste issues. Contrary to the conventional sustainability emphasis on plastics, this work demonstrates that recyclable or biodegradable plastics offer only marginal benefits, whereas substituting critical-metal conductors and optimizing circuit architectures can significantly reduce impacts without compromising performance. This systems engineering-based life-cycle assessment framework holds promise for establishing ecologically responsible innovation in next-generation wearable electronics.
