Europe’s Solar Stewardship Initiative (SSI) has begun an investigation into Chinese solar manufacturer JA Solar after the US government added the company to its Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act (UFLPA) entity list.
In a statement issued yesterday evening, the SSI said “The SSI takes the addition of the Donghai JA Solar Technology Co Ltd entity to the UFLPA list very seriously and has initiated an investigation into the matter. JA Solar’s membership of the Solar Stewardship Initiative is suspended while the investigation takes place.”
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The SSI did not explain what its investigation will entail.
Earlier this week, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that Donghai JA Solar, a subsidiary of JA Solar, was one of 37 companies added to its UFLPA entity list. Inclusion on the list prohibits a company from shipping its goods into the US.
The DHS said it had “reasonable cause to believe, based on specific and articulable information, that Donghai JA Solar sources polysilicon from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR).” The Xinjiang region has been associated with alleged forced labour practices enacted by the Chinese government.
Four other solar component manufacturers were also added to the entity list, though none with the same industry profile as JA Solar, which has consistently been ranked among the top five solar manufacturers in the world by both shipment quantity and bankability.
Solar stewardship
The SSI has introduced industry certifications that seek to guarantee traceability and environmental, sustainability, and governance (ESG) standards in the solar manufacturing industry. As an industry initiative, it lacks the legal power to enforce standards on manufacturers and instead relies on them submitting themselves to independent audits.
Founded by trade bodies SolarPower Europe and Solar Energy UK, the initiative offers manufacturers the chance to submit specific manufacturing locations to third-party audits to prove their compliance with the standards. In its statement, the SSI said: “SSI certification applies to sites, not companies.”
JA Solar had not yet had any manufacturing sites approved under the scheme. The SSI said: “When joining the SSI, each member commits to applying the SSI Standards within its entire operations and encouraging their adoption along its supply chain. For now, when a solar manufacturer joins the SSI as a member, it commits to submit at least two of its production sites for assessment against the SSI Standards within 12 months.”
In its statement on JA Solar, the SSI said it “does not conduct assessments or certifications for sites in regions that are inaccessible to unsupervised visits,” which includes the XUAR.
“By refusing to conduct assessments or certifications in sites or regions that are not freely accessible, the SSI contributes to the marginalisation of businesses who fail to uphold strong ESG and traceability standards,” the statement continued.
Critics of the SSI have said that it does not prevent manufacturers from operating bifurcated supply chains, where certain facilities produce “safe” SSI-certified products and others may employ or benefit from unethical practices.
Two Trinasolar manufacturing sites in China became the first facilities to achieve SSI ESG Standard certification last week. The ESG Standard relates to labour practises, carbon emissions, waste management and other ethical and business management concerns; the SSI has also established a Supply Chain Traceability Standard, which seeks to track the entire material supply chain for solar module production.
PV Tech has reached out to JA Solar for comment and we will update this story as it progresses.
