Solar Panels - Environmental Saviour or Another 'Green' Disaster?

Solar Panels convert sunlight into electricity and the only emissions from making them are the smell of roses and a touch of vanilla. Right? Wrong!

In this video I take a look at a recent report from Ethical Consumer, focusing on 16 bands of solar panel and ask some key questions…

- Are solar panels eco friendly?
- What are solar panels made from?
- Can you recycle solar panels?
- Are the people who make solar panels paid correctly?
- Does making solar panels involve forced labour, razor wire and factories that needed to install suicide nets?

There's a lot to digest in this one.

CONTENTS

00.00 introducing the subject
01.13 introducing ethical consumer
02.49 the current situation
03.24 how eco friendly are solar panels?
03.58 carbon in solar panel production?
04.43 pollution in solar panel production
05.36 how do you recycle solar panels?
06.43 what do you do with old solar panels?
07.40 ethics problems within the supply chain?
09.17 forced labour in solar panel supply chains?
13.53 what about conflict minerals?
14.07 are solar panel companies involved in lobbying?
16.24 the company behind the brand… and worker suicides
18.16 conclusion

16 SOLAR PANEL BRANDS:

GB-Sol
Yingli
JinkoSolar
LONGi
Suntech
Trina Solar
JA Solar
Viessmann Solar
Canadian Solar
SunPower
Sharp
Hanwa -Q-Cells
Vikram Solar
Hyundai
Panasonic
Rec Solar

LINKS

Ethical Consumer's report on Solar Panels (By Katalin Csatadi with additional research by Shanta Bhavnani.
https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/energy/shopping-guide/solar-panels?Monthly_Newsletter=&check_logged_in=1

What can I do?

If you want to support these efforts, sign the following petitions:

Freedom United is calling on world leaders to ensure clean energy is free of forced labour. Find out more on the Freedom United website.
https://www.freedomunited.org/advocate/free-uyghurs-solar/

Corporate Justice Coalition is campaigning for a new UK law to hold businesses to account when they fail to prevent supply chain human rights abuses and environmental harms. This would cover Uyghur forced labour. Find out more from the Corporate Justice Coalition website.
https://corporatejusticecoalition.org/our-campaigns/due-diligence-law/