Customers at Statoil service stations in Sweden will be able to fill their tanks from next year without causing any overall rise in planetary carbon dioxide levels.
A voluntary environmental fee is designed to give consumers the opportunity to neutralise the amount of greenhouse gas they release.
“Whether you drive a car or a lorry, or use our products to heat your home or fuel industrial production, you contribute to carbon dioxide emissions,” says Henrik Grenert.
Employed on business development for Statoil’s energy and retail cluster in Sweden, he is manager of the carbon neutralisation project.
“We want to give our customers the opportunity to take responsibility for the unavoidable climate impact of their activities,” he explains.
Swedes can already calculate this impact and make their energy consumption for 2007 climate-neutral by using a calculator posted – in Swedish only – to www.statoil.se/klimat.
Users enter their annual consumption of oil products, and the software works out what it will cost to neutralise the emission effects.
Norwegian classification society Det Norske Veritas (DNV) has verified the service, which will invest money collected in emission allowances or projects to reduce the greenhouse effect.
“Tomorrow’s players in the oil market will be the ones who display an ability over time to integrate climate issues in their ordinary business development,” says Mr Grenert.
“As an oil and gas company, we have an additional responsibility as well as a big opportunity to help cut emissions. Climate change is a global problem.”
Statoil is working to develop products which can achieve such reductions, and has an ambition to trim 20% off its greenhouse gas emissions between 1990 and 2010.
Among a number of activities, the group is storing a million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year beneath the seabed on the Sleipner East field it operates in the North Sea.
Statoil is also buying carbon allowances to compensate for the emissions associated with business travel by its own personnel.
Contact information:
Helena Fornstedt
Vice president media relations Svenska Statoil
Tel: + 46 704 296 132