When "Product Design" Meets "ESG"

How We and Our Suppliers Are Working Through the Growing Pains of Transformation

When a product comes into being, how much responsibility for the planet can it carry, beyond its features and specifications?

In 2026, we began trying to think more carefully about sustainability at the source of product design — not as a slogan, but starting from a bill of materials (BOM), a carton structure, a roll of plastic film, testing and adjusting one step at a time. We've only walked a short way down this road, and there's still a lot we haven't gotten right.

This feature records the behind-the-scenes moments that never make it onto a spec sheet — the trade-offs, the back-and-forth, and the process of facing challenges and finding solutions together with our supplier partners.

Chapter One｜The Story Behind the Numbers: An 11.5% Green Commitment and Recycled Packaging

In Q1 2026, our green supply chain completion rate reached 11.5%. It may not look like a large number, but behind it are countless head-on trade-offs between quality and environmental protection.

Switching to eco-friendly cardboard sounds simple. But for medical devices, packaging is the product's only armor during cross-border shipping — it has to withstand vibration, stacking, and drops, and endure summer temperatures approaching 60°C and high humidity inside ocean shipping containers. Our challenge is to reduce our impact on the planet without compromising on product protection.

A European Project That Cut Corrugated Paper Use by 47%

When the iX series launched in the European market, local partners shared a clear need: smaller overall cartons and more units per pallet, for more efficient, lower-carbon shipping.

The team didn't take the easiest route. To reach a paper-reduction target of 40–50%, we redesigned the structure of the packaging so the product would still be held securely and protected from damage even inside a more compact carton. After two rounds of prototype adjustments and passing internal shipping and drop tests, the results were encouraging:

• The outer carton was optimized from the portable-case format (367 × 145.5 × 272.8 mm) to a pan-European specification (194 × 212 × 143 mm)
• Actual unfolded paper area was reduced by 47%
• Per-pallet product load increased 4 to 6 times, meaningfully lowering shipping carbon emissions per unit

Why Recycled Packaging Remains a Deep-Water Challenge

We're also honest about the technical hurdles of recycled materials. The pulp fibers in recycled cardboard get shorter with each cycle, typically allowing only 5 to 7 rounds of recycling, with strength and rigidity declining accordingly; recycled feedstock is often mixed with ink, adhesive, and coatings, resulting in inconsistent quality; and de-inking and reinforcement processes make cost savings hard to achieve. For medical device packaging, recycled cartons must still pass box compression testing (BCT), burst testing, and moisture resistance evaluation before they can actually go into use.

This is why we choose to validate every step carefully, rather than switching materials hastily for the sake of a nice-looking number. Every percentage point behind our 11.5% is a commitment that has held up under drop testing.

Chapter Two｜Leaving No One Behind: The Conversations Behind a 53% Sign-off Rate

So far, 53% of our suppliers have signed our ESG Code of Conduct (the Supplier Social Responsibility and Business Ethics Declaration). But more than the number, we want to talk about the partners who haven't signed yet, and how we're working alongside them.

One Real Challenge

Many of our long-time, highly skilled small partners, limited by scale and resources, found ESG confusing — even a source of anxiety — at first. Sustainability reports, carbon inventories, and international certifications were unfamiliar and daunting terms to them.

We Try to Communicate More and Demand Less

Rather than simply handing partners a set of requirements, we chose ongoing communication and hands-on support, working through the process together:

• Bringing ESG into everyday evaluation: supplier assessment was expanded from MQCD to MEQCD, formally adding an Environmental (E) dimension to selection and scoring.
• Starting from existing habits: most supply chain partners now reuse cartons after shipping to Wellell, and some have started using reusable PP crates, reducing damage and improving recovery rates. These aren't mandatory rules — they're understandings that grew out of ongoing conversation.
• Shortening the carbon footprint through localization: about 93.8% of our regular suppliers are based in Taiwan, making a shorter supply chain itself part of our carbon reduction efforts.

To us, this feels less like scoring partners and leaving them where they are, and more like taking the time to work alongside them to find what's actually achievable.

Looking Ahead: Moving Toward 20% and 80%

11.5% and 53% reflect where we stand today — we still have some distance to go before reaching our goals.

Looking ahead to 2026, we've set a direction we want to keep working toward:

• Raising the share of green suppliers to 20%
• Raising the ESG Code of Conduct sign-off rate to 80%

From the structure of a carton, to the thickness of a roll of plastic film, to the signing of a declaration — these are all things our product design team and supply chain partners are still trying, and still adjusting, along the way. We hope that these small changes at the source can gradually influence the whole supply chain, and ultimately make a real difference for the people who use our products.

We believe sustainability and quality don't have to be a trade-off — and that's a direction Wellell will keep investing in going forward.