BP's targetneutral

BP's targetneutral is a voluntary scheme launched in the UK in August 2006 allowing vehicle owners to calculate and pay an amount for the mitigation costs of their annual greenhouse emissions.

Project goals

BP have stated that goals of the project are to:

• "Reduce emissions as much as possible by changing attitudes and behaviour to use less fuel and be more fuel efficient. This will save money too.
• Replace the fuel, oil, tyres and car with more fuel efficient products and models, specifically high efficiency diesel vehicles, when possible.
• Neutralise the effects of the CO2 emissions that cannot be reduced or replaced by joining targetneutral." [1]

Offset Projects

Proceeds from member contributions will be invested in carbon dioxide mitigation projects such as renewable energy. In its launch statement BP announced that there are currently five projects that have been selected. These include:

• a biomass energy plant in Himachal Pradesh;
• a wind farm in Karnataka, India;
• an animal waste management and methane capture program in Mexico. [2]

As part of the scheme BP has established an Advisory and Assurance Panel comprising:

• Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director of Forum for the Future
• Professor David Begg, Chairman of Tube Lines;
• Rita Clifton, Chairman of Interbrand;
• Steve Koonin, BP's Chief Scientist;
• Peter Mather, BP's Head of Country, UK;
• Ed Mayo, CEO National Consumer Council;
• Charles Secrett, Independent Advisor and former Director Friends of the Earth;
• Tim Smit, CEO The Eden Project;
• Professor Kathy Sykes, Professor of Public Engagement in Science & Engineering, Bristol University.

Advisory and Assurance Panel (2012)

Accessed March 2012:

• Jonathon Porritt
• Rita Clifton
• Mark Kenber
• Charles Secrett
• Tim Smit

Funding

BP is providing the set-up funding and covering ongoing costs so that members funds are solely used to fund mitigation projects. The scheme is alo integhrated with the company's marketing objectives of increasing its share of petrol sales. BP have announced that they will contribute a percentage of the revenue from fuel sales made by targetneutral members from BP stations.

"The BP contribution is calculated per litre and is up to 10p per tank for regular fuels and up to 20p per tank for lower CO2-emitting BP Ultimate fuels. BP has 1 million customers per day in the UK," it states. [3]

Other companies have similar carbon offset schemes:

• Ford USA and Ford Land Rover have launched Terrapass;
• British Airways have teamed up with Climate Care

Marketing & PR

The announcement of the project was handled by the Launch Group.

Contact details

Website: http://www.targetneutral.com

SourceWatch resources

• Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline
• BP's campaign to exploit protected areas
• BP in Colombia
• BP: Timeline of Major Controversies
• Global warming
• Greenwashing

External links

• BP, "BP Launches targetneutral", Media Release, August 23, 2006.
• Mark Tran, "BP revs up for carbon neutral motoring:Is a new scheme an ambitious bid to tackle CO2 emissions or a gimmick to enhance its green credentials", Guardian Unlimited, August 23, 2006.
• Peter Crush, "Environmental Report: The day BP tackled CO2", PR Week, October 12, 2006. (Sub req'd).

BP's targetneutral Advisory and Assurance Panel, organizational web page, accessed March 26, 2012.