By Mathew Carr


Nov. 5, 2020 — LONDON: Royal Dutch Shell Group is planning to charge only about 30 pence ($0.39) to counter the emissions produced by a tank of fuel for one of its British customers from November next year, according to a product email.

The energy company will offset for free for users of its mobile app until October next year and afterwards charge half a pence per litre. A common tank size can be about 60 litres, or 13 gallons.

Shell, which is seeking to reinvent itself as a cleaner energy company, says it will subsidize the price. “We’ll match your contribution and share in the cost.”

A tank produces about 100 kilograms of carbon dioxide, so the price is the equivalent of $3.90 a metric ton. That’s about 13% of the price of EU carbon allowances, which are trading today on the ICE Futures Europe exchange at about 26 euros a ton.

Customers need to opt in to take advantage of the free period, and agree to be charged the extra amount after October.

Here is the text of the announcement:

MAKE THE CHOICE TO OPT-IN TODAY

We believe we all need to do our part to reduce the carbon emissions from the products we use. Help us to continue the amazing work we’ve already started together by opting in to driving carbon neutral today.

Simply opt-in via the Shell app* and we’ll continue to offset the emissions associated with your fuel purchases, for free, until October 2021. After this, you are consenting to share the cost of offsetting with us by paying a small contribution of ½ pence per litre extra during each fill up, unless you specifically opt-out. And we’ll match your contribution and share in the cost.

It doesn’t sound like much but if all Shell Go+ customers participated, together we’d compensate for 2.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year**. That’s the equivalent carbon storage of 4.4 million average trees!

Remember you’ll need to click on the below from your mobile phone to opt-in via the Shell app.

Here is some information on the Shell program:
https://www.goplus.shell.com/en-gb/promotion/1801?eid=DM745244&bid=1205568185