Great British Energy (GBE), the publicly owned energy company set up by the UK government, has reaffirmed its commitment to the Solar Stewardship Initiative (SSI), a multi-stakeholder scheme for responsible sourcing in the solar supply chain. Suppliers bidding for its new £20 million Community Fund and £5 million Partnerships Grant must now be SSI members or provide equivalent environmental, social and governance (ESG) assurance. The move marks one of the first times a UK public energy investor has tied community-scale funding directly to a recognised due diligence scheme, signalling tighter expectations across the domestic solar supply chain.
Headquartered in Aberdeen, GBE is the UK’s publicly owned clean energy company, set up to accelerate the deployment of homegrown renewables and channel public capital into generation projects, supply chains and community energy. For now, it acts mainly as a minority equity investor and grant funder, but plans to acquire and develop its own projects over time.
Funding with strings attached
The Community Fund is expected to support more than 1,000 local and community-led clean energy projects across the UK. Alongside it, the newly announced Partnerships Grant offers up to £5 million for 2026–2027 to help local authorities in England work with community energy partners on joint clean energy projects. Grants are structured in two stages: up to £40,000 for partnership formation and feasibility, and up to £100,000 to take a feasible project into detailed development. Eligible technologies include solar, wind and storage. Applications must be led by a local authority, with a community energy group providing a letter of support.
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The application window runs for eight weeks, with Local Net Zero Hubs offering tailored advice in England. GBE has said it will score applications on organisational capacity, project viability, community ownership and benefit, value for money and risk management, while aiming for a wide geographical spread including areas that have had less support to date. Community organisations in Wales and Northern Ireland can apply to the Community Fund. In Scotland, GBE instead invests in the Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES), delivered by Local Energy Scotland.
Because the SSI requirement applies to solar components supplied into either scheme, it pushes responsible sourcing requirements beyond large utility-scale procurement and into the community energy segment, where due diligence capacity has historically been thinner.
A policy signal to the solar sector
The funding conditions sit within a broader strategic shift set out in a letter from GBE chief executive Dan McGrail to Lord Alton of Liverpool, chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The SSI welcomed the letter, noting that it recognises the value of multi-stakeholder initiatives in supporting due diligence, collaboration and collective action to address forced labour risks across complex global supply chains.
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Rachel Owens, chief executive of the SSI: “We welcome Great British Energy’s continued commitment to responsible and ethical solar supply chains. By recognising the role of credible multi-stakeholder initiatives and incorporating SSI membership into its funding requirements, GBE is helping to strengthen transparency, due diligence and responsible sourcing across the sector in the UK.”
In its letter, GBE set out an ambition, backed by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, to be a leader in ethical supply chains and to deliver on government commitments to tackle forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking in the clean energy sector. The company has established an Ethical Supply Chains Unit, convened an Ethical Supply Chains Advisory Group chaired by Baroness Frances O’Grady and set up a Trade Union Advisory Committee. A voluntary Modern Slavery Statement is due in the autumn.
Mapping the risk
GBE’s current investment pipeline covers five sectors that it classes as carrying salient human rights risks: wind and its supply chains, solar, battery energy storage systems, marine vessels and the built environment. The company notes that risks typically sit several tiers beyond direct (Tier 1) suppliers. Construction and installation depend heavily on agency work and subcontracting, while seafarers and migrant workers are vulnerable to illegal recruitment fees.
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International solar, battery and wind supply chains are underpinned by critical minerals and materials sourced across Australia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, China, Chile and Peru, among others. GBE describes these chains as complex and opaque, with downstream developers often having limited visibility. The company acknowledges that as a minority investor, its leverage over portfolio companies beyond their direct (Tier 1) suppliers is limited. That is expected to change as the company moves towards acquiring and developing its own projects.
From policy to contract
The policy framework is already being written into GBE’s commercial arrangements. Provisions covering ongoing oversight, remediation and, where necessary, exit have been incorporated into the terms and conditions of a £300 million Grant Funding Agreement and into its investment contracts. Ethical supply chain considerations have also been built into the scoring criteria for the £300 million Offshore Wind and Networks Fund announced in December 2025.
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GBE’s Responsible Business Conduct Policy and a Code of Conduct for Partners, both due to be published later this year, will set out red lines, minimum expectations and a framework for continuous improvement supported by time-bound action plans. These are aligned with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct (2018), the ILO core conventions and the UN Principles for Responsible Investment.
To date, GBE has invested £8.875 million, jointly with Barclays Climate Ventures, in Naked Energy for a UK solar-thermal manufacturing facility, and £40 million in ITM Power for hydrogen electrolyser capacity in South Yorkshire. It has also invested £50 million in the Pentland floating offshore wind project in Scotland, alongside the National Wealth Fund and the Scottish National Investment Bank. GBE is also expanding its multi-stakeholder engagement and exploring closer work with the SSI and the Global Battery Alliance.
Implications for the market
Solar manufacturers active in the UK can expect SSI membership to become a standard condition in public tenders. Also for local authorities and community energy groups, access to public capital for clean energy increasingly depends on the integrity of the supply chain that‘s behind the panels on the community rooftops. (hcn)
