• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’ January 23, 2023
Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom January 23, 2023
IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia January 23, 2023
BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels January 17, 2023
Next
Prev

Canadian Solar Announces Probe into Forced Labour Allegations

May 16, 2022
Reading time: 2 minutes

flickr

flickr

1
SHARES
 

Canadian Solar Inc. has announced an investigation to determine whether any workers at its photovoltaic plant in China’s Xinjiang region were hired against their will, though the company claimed in the past it would be impossible to determine if its supply chain used forced labour.

The Guelph, Ontario-based company has partnered with GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd., whose network of companies has employed workers from a Chinese government program to transfer people, many of them Uyghurs, to industrial workplaces, reports The Globe and Mail. Beyond mentioning that a qualified third party would be hired for the audit, the company has provided no details on what the investigation will involve, and whether it the results will be made public.

  • Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
  • Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
  • The Weekender: The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

Canadian Solar has also built a solar generating project in Xinjiang, but now says it has sold the project.

Treatment of the largely Muslim Uyghur community by Chinese authorities has been called “genocide”by Canada’s Parliament, and the United States imposed sanctions on GCL-Poly Energy in June 2021 after the labour allegations emerged.

“Without knowing the details of what they’re actually proposing to do here, it is hard to feel satisfied that the review planned is going to be sufficiently in-depth and transparent and have the right kinds of safeguards and design in place to make sure that it’s adequate,” said Anthony Schein, director of shareholder advocacy at Share, a Toronto-based research and advisory firm.

Canadian Solar had previously told Share that such an assessment would be impossible. “This work is not capable of being completed,” general counsel Jianyi Zhang wrote in an April 20 email.

“We tried the approach but couldn’t find one consultant,” wrote Huifeng Chang, the company’s chief financial officer, in a separate email. He faulted Western advocacy groups, saying they “mistakenly regard any employment of Uyghurs as forced labour, which has caused severe harm to the Uyghurs we all love.”

He added that Canadian Solar does not employ any Uyghurs and “has no presence in Xinjiang.”

“It is unfortunate that people are battering the victims because they can’t reach the culprits,” he wrote.

Canadian Solar’s turnaround on the probe shows the company is shifting under investor pressure, led by Share. Laura Murphy, a professor of human rights at Sheffield Hallam University and author of a report on Uyghur forced labour, suggests that the probe’s efficacy will need to overcome shortcomings that plague more than just the one company.

Across the sector, “there is very little in the way of details regarding how sourcing has changed and who the new suppliers are,” she said. “Without transparency, consumers and stakeholders should not simply trust that the work is done.”



in Canada, China, Environmental Justice, Legal & Regulatory, Solar

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

RL0919/wikimedia commons
Finance & Investment

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.1k
Rachel Notley/Facebook
Jobs & Training

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
259
EcoAnalytics
Media, Messaging, & Public Opinion

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
193

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

RL0919/wikimedia commons

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.1k
United Nations

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
26
@tongbingxue/Twitter

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
273
Rachel Notley/Facebook

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
259
James Vincent Wardhaugh/flickr

Canada Sidelines Ontario’s Ring of Fire, Approves Separate Mining Project

December 4, 2022
379
EcoAnalytics

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
193

Recent Posts

Weirton, WV by Jon Dawson/flickr

IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia

January 23, 2023
495
Sergio Boscaino/flickr

Dubai Mulls Quitting C40 Cities Over ‘Costly’ Climate Target

January 24, 2023
85
hangela/pixabay

New UK Coal Mine Faces Two Legal Challenges

January 24, 2023
44

Gas Stoves Enter U.S. Climate Culture War, Become ‘Bellwether’ for Industry

January 22, 2023
73
Jeff Hitchcock/flickr.

BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels

January 23, 2023
495

Exxon Had the Right Global Warming Numbers Through Decades of Denial: Study

January 17, 2023
223
Next Post
Seci/wikimedia commons

Trade Protection for Fossils Could Add Hundreds of Billions to Cost of Climate Action

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}