SEIA issues new protocol to foster ethical solar supply chains pv-tech.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pv-tech.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Protocol is a set of recommended best practices designed to: (i) prevent forced labor in the solar supply chain; (ii) help companies meet their U.S. import compliance obligations; and (iii) provide customers value chain transparency. It has been structured as an industry specification or de facto standard, with the expectation that it will be further developed into a formal industry standard.
Importantly, it also includes an audit mechanism to measure a company’s implementation and compliance with the Protocol. In assessing conformance with the Protocol, no single factor will be dispositive. Rather, auditors will assess conformance based on a holistic approach.
Courtesy of NREL
The Solar Supply Chain Traceability Protocol is a set of guidelines designed to help solar companies meet compliance obligations and, importantly, provide customers with assurances that their solar products are free of unethical labor practices.
“Solar customers expect their products to be ethically-produced, and this protocol helps ensure that solar products coming into the United States are not made using forced labor,” said John Smirnow, SEIA’s vice president of market strategy. “Solar is one of the cleanest and most reliable technologies on our grid today, and we hope this tool will give American buyers and leaders confidence at a time when solar energy increasingly supports our need to fuel economic growth and tackle the climate crisis.”
Monday, 11 January 2021 The US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has released a statement in response to the publication, last week, of a story in the New York Times claiming that some of the world s largest solar energy companies, working with the Chinese government, use workers from the Chinese solar industry who have been red-flagged as victims of forced labour. Uyghurs held in detention centre. Courtesy of Valerie Peay/Vimeo.
The New York Times isn t the only publication that has published such claims. Michael Copley authored a similar story published on the SP Global website which went into great detail on this subject and is more accessible, given that the NYT article is covered by a paywall.