This month, one of the world's largest oil companies - Shell - will commence a scheme to allow customers to offset their carbon usage against environmental programmes that promote emissions reduction.
For a company built around fossil fuels, Shell are acutely aware that in the current climate they must address environmental responsibilities. As such they have gone as far as publicly supporting the Paris Climate Agreement and committing an investment to 'new energies' to help reduce their carbon footprint. They are also installing EV Charging Stations across their network of forecourts.
This latest programme - the Carbon Neutral Driving Scheme - reaches out to the multitude of drivers who want to support the environment but may not be in a position to move to electric vehicles for the foreseeable future. Shell's investment of $300m will mean that customers of Shell-V petrol and diesel will not incur any additional costs and those purchasing regular Shell fuel can participate for an extra 1 cent per litre. The funding will be used to support 'nature-based projects' around the world in order to capture emissions that otherwise would not be captured. One of these projects is the Wildlife Works Kasigau Corridor Project in Kenya which protects 500,000 acres of highly threatened forest.
It will roll out in the Netherlands initially before expanding to other countries and will form part of their overall clean energy budget of $2 billion.
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