"It’s time to act on modern slavery in renewable energy supply chains", 1 December 2022

[...]

[...] Clean Energy Council, in collaboration with Norton Rose Fulbright, has just released a White Paper on how to address modern slavery in clean energy supply chains.

[...]

A key weapon against modern slavery is transparency. Supply chain due diligence that enables end purchasers to know whether the item is the product of modern slavery can help shift consumption patterns towards more ethical producers.

However, in situations such as Xinjiang polysilicon production, the inability to conduct independent audits puts significant practical constraints on being able to prove whether or not a particular batch of panels, or even a particular batch of polysilicon, is linked to modern slavery.

Collaboration across government, industry and civil society can help develop global certification schemes that start breaking through supply chain opacity.

Another approach is to create new supply chains. This is full of economic opportunity: Australia already produces many of the raw minerals needed for battery manufacturing, and we were early pioneers of solar technology.

Strategic investment in onshore production capability would provide greater oversight of labour standards, create jobs and more geographic diversification, the latter helping to manage a range of risks, not just modern slavery, associated with supply chains that are currently geographically concentrated. A recent International Energy Agency report on emphasised the vulnerabilities of highly concentrated supply chains and the risks these pose to the energy transition.

[...]