CALGARY -- A large gas retailer is asking Canadians to pay two cents more per litre at the pump - but only if they want to.
The Canadian branch of Royal Dutch Shell launched its Drive Carbon Neutral program on Thursday.
The program, which is offered through Shell's EasyPay app, will see the company calculate the amount of carbon emissions that will be produced by the fuel drivers purchase. Shell will then buy the equivalent in carbon credits to offset the emissions.
“Each carbon credit is tracked, it has a serial number and it is registered in public registries, so consumers can actually see what’s happening,” Shell Canada’s Andrea Brecka said.
The program was first launched overseas, where Shell said up to 20 per cent of drivers opted-in while filling up.
Remains to be seen
But its Canadian popularity remains to be seen.
“I think you might see different people having doubts about this kind of program for different reasons,” climate policy expert with the University of Calgary Sara Hastings-Simon said. “(But when it comes to driving), there just aren’t enough offsets in the world to address that bucket of emissions.”
Calgary motorists CTV News spoke with Thursday said they won’t be paying the extra fee, climate-conscious or not.
“It’s a little bit hard for me to digest,” Tanya Francoeur said. “We’re not the big money people: we’re just the customer. It’s their gas that’s putting the emissions in the air.”
Shell has set a target of being a net zero emitter by 2050.
“Corporations like ours have a big part to play and we’re fully committed to driving that change,” Brecka said.
“Their impact is really more about starting a conversation and what that leads to,” Hastings-Simon added.
Shell told CTV News it is sourcing carbon credits from the Darkwoods Forest Carbon Project, an initiative of the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
