TaiyangNews: Let’s start with the big picture: DMEGC Solar’s Green Action Whitepaper outlines a clear path of aligning your business with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. What drives your company’s overarching sustainability vision?  

DMEGC Solar: Sustainability, in the form of social responsibility, runs in the veins of the Hengdian Group, dating back to its foundation, “to be the most socially responsible enterprise.” Personally, down to its origin, I think the motive to run this company is to really do something for Hengdian, for this place economically and socially.   

The Green Action Whitepaper is just a collective for our actions below the surface, and we strive to do more in all sustainability aspects in a practical and efficient way, e.g., environmentally for low carbon. In the meantime, we could arm ourselves with a more scientific and comprehensive management system. 

TaiyangNews: “Infinity Power, Infinity Future” is your sustainability mantra. How has this been operationalized within your dual-core focus on magnetic materials and new energy?  

DMEGC Solar: We implement our strategy in a dual-layer system. Firstly organization. Within DMEGC Solar, we have multiple disciplines of business, like magnetic materials and apparatus, alloy frames, lithium batteries, and us – solar cells and modules. Solar actually plays the role of a pioneer. We start with designing the strategy, followed by organizing and implementing. We then expand the scope of the work to the whole company, sharing our accumulated experience, expertise, and fallbacks along the way with the others who are on the ESG path. That’s why you can see 2 sets of decarbonization goals, namely 30-50 for the company, and the expression “solar will reach its carbon neutrality target ahead of schedule” tails along.  

Within solar, we manage our carbon at 2 levels: for the organization and the products, managed by different teams but reporting to the same ESG Committee for coordination. 

TaiyangNews: With your ESG model incorporating a 3-level structure and a dedicated Strategy & ESG Committee, how do you ensure consistent integration of ESG considerations across DMEGC Solar’s global operations?  

DMEGC Solar: One phrase, same logic in structure. The committee-taskforce-team structure has been inherited from the company level to the division level, ensuring a clear and consistent way to communicate vertically and horizontally within DMEGC Solar. 

Additionally, with equal importance, we have our annual planning & review in each such structure to make sure that everyone knows where they are and what they are making progress on, and enable timely reporting and intervention when necessary. 

TaiyangNews: DMEGC Solar has committed to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, with a 40% Scope 1 & 2 and 50% Scope 3 intensity reduction by 2030. What milestones have you already reached, and what comes next on the decarbonization journey?  

DMEGC Solar: We have already achieved carbon-neutrality across all our n-type product manufacturing, which is an important milestone that helps us understand how to achieve this in multiple ways. We tried different ways to make our manufacturing carbon-neutral. From ordinary rooftop PV sites and supply chain PV generation allocation to dedicated power supply, we have gathered a lot of experience that can guide us more efficiently in the future.  

TaiyangNews: You’ve implemented several energy-saving and carbon-reduction projects in 2023 (12 according to your report), reducing emissions by over 17,000 tons. Could you highlight one or two of the most impactful measures? And what about a 100% RE target – are you looking into this as a solar manufacturer? And how? 

DMEGC Solar: We are actually assessing whether RE100 is the one for us, in a prudent and ‘DMEGC Solar’ way, since once we are on board, we want to be on board all the time. 

TaiyangNews: Your Lianyungang factory became the first TÜV SÜD-certified 4-star zero-carbon factory in the PV industry. How is this different from traditional green certifications, and do you plan to replicate this model elsewhere? 

DMEGC Solar: Yes, we have already done this with a more generalized certification called ISO 14068, formerly known as PAS 2060, for our Jiangsu DMEGC Solar (Sihong) factory, and we are preparing to expand our certification scope along with our “Green for Factories” sub-strategy.  

TaiyangNews: Scope 3 is usually the toughest nut to crack. How are you preparing to disclose Scope 3 emissions in next year’s ESG report, and what challenges do you face in tracking upstream and downstream emissions in your value chain?  

DMEGC Solar: Yes, it is a hard nut to crack. As we already know, Scope 3 emissions are much less incentivized when compared with much more physical and comparable Scope 1 and 2 emissions for suppliers. In this way, we not only promote PV implementation in the supply chain, firmly connected to our contract clauses and order considerations, but also take more physical steps, like building more centralized solar-themed industrial parks. By asking our suppliers to build their factories on-site, we can largely reduce 2 of our 3 most significant Scope 3 emissions: up and downstream shipping. 

TaiyangNews: DMEGC Solar has conducted lifecycle carbon footprint analysis on 51 mainstream PV products and integrates green design principles from R&D through recycling. How does this approach influence your product development?  

DMEGC Solar: It makes them more systematic and neat in management in the first place, and incorporates the green notion as an inseparable part in our product goals and R&D, covering all aspects such as materials and components. 

TaiyangNews: Beyond carbon, DMEGC Solar aims to eliminate hazardous substances like PFAS and fully comply with EU RoHS and REACH. How are you ensuring your products meet – and exceed – such regulations?  

DMEGC Solar: We have dedicated teams that regularly monitor regulations, and our quality engineers conduct annual testing and certification, and sometimes even multiple times. All practice is documented for systematic guidance and for annual review.  

TaiyangNews: The AgriPV solutions you’ve developed reportedly reduce irrigation needs by 20% while protecting soil quality. How do you see multifunctional PV design evolving in the years to come?  

DMEGC Solar: Again, personally, I would say I’m no technical expert, but I do share the vision that those customized scenarios will increase in the near future. The society is increasingly calling for cutting to the bone for every bit of resources, including the land. Dual or multi-purpose land usage will be more prevalent. However, multiple constructions of PV sites do pose some degree of biodiversity threat in some categories of ecological habitats.   

TaiyangNews: Your ESG strategy places strong emphasis on responsible sourcing. With 100% of new suppliers screened on ESG criteria and 169 suppliers audited in 2023, what practices have been most effective in driving supplier ESG performance?  

DMEGC Solar: We have tried most conventional ways, including Supplier Code of Conduct, statements of all sorts (anti-corruption, environmental compliance, etc.), training, and so on. We found it most effective to have such practices formally in contracts. Plus, we do have some good suppliers willing to do well in ESG, and we will have some cooperation projects with them. 

TaiyangNews: You’ve helped 13 suppliers gain Green Factory certifications and are rolling out SA8000 requirements across your network. Can you share a concrete example of supplier transformation enabled by DMEGC Solar’s support?  

DMEGC Solar: One of our frame suppliers didn’t have a dedicated ESG management system formerly and struggled with their social responsibility audit. By auditing, and some training in that case, our colleagues guided them through building a department or committee structure, a policy system, and a regular testing and certification mechanism within 5 months. Later, we introduced the SA8000 certification and helped them through it to further upgrade their internal system. Our partnership enabled systemic change beyond mere certification. 

TaiyangNews: DMEGC Solar now has ESG certification for two factories by Solar Stewardship Initiative (SSI). What progress have you made on traceability assessments under this framework, and how are you preparing for full certification across factory sites?  

DMEGC Solar: Currently, two of our factories have obtained certification under the SSI ESG Standards, while preparatory work for SSI Traceability is still in its early stages. What we do is that we analyze the standard to understand and prepare for its requirements. And we also deliver the standard to all of our suppliers and provide training as well. 

TaiyangNews: You’ve deployed smart factory systems and predictive energy platforms as part of your digital ESG upgrade. How is digitalization helping you optimize emissions, resource use, and overall ESG performance?  

DMEGC Solar: A smart factory system means smart collection of data and quick response to adjustments. In this way, we get a better grasp of how our emissions and resource consumption go. It enables better planning, timely adjustment of measures when, for example, our energy consumption or byproduct intensity exceeds our planned targets, and lets us know if our responses are good enough, for example, on water consumption.  

TaiyangNews: Regulations such as CSRD, CBAM, and the CSDDD are fast becoming industry drivers. How is DMEGC Solar positioning itself to stay ahead of compliance in Europe and globally – not just reactively, but proactively?  

DMEGC Solar: We see such requirements as our own, since we fall into the category 2 of such legislation, and also as opportunities to enhance our own management. We aim not only to comply with such requirements, but also to use them as effective tools to help our supply partners enhance their ESG systems, while upgrading our own resilience against any supplier chain risks in the meantime. 

TaiyangNews: You’ve been leading ESG at a time when sustainability is becoming both a business imperative and a competitive differentiator in solar. What has personally inspired you the most on DMEGC Solar’s sustainability journey? And what legacy do you hope the company will leave in the global clean energy transition?  

DMEGC Solar: What inspires me most is seeing our workers ‘automatically’ champion low carbon practices covering all our main series products in carbon certifications – proving sustainability drives both ethics and efficiency, even before the ESG departments’ input, out of a way to pioneer the industry and reduce our footprints. 

For legacy, I hope DMEGC Solar pioneers beyond carbon neutrality: building scalable solar solutions that empower global communities while setting new benchmarks for ethical supply chains and circular models. We aim to show that the success of clean energy hinges on holistic responsibility.