Corporate Responsibility: BP’s targetneutral
December 20th, 2006
Oil giant BP’s motto is “Beyond Petroleum”; strange, considering how record profits from gasoline sales continue to fill the company’s Scrooge McDuck-esque coffers. Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh considering BP’s seemingly-honest commitment to environmental responsibility. Take targetneutral, a carbon offset program based in the United Kingdom funded by BP. Members buy back their CO2 emissions by funding alternative energy projects in the developing world. Additionally, if users swipe the right card, BP will donate 10p for every liter purchased by targetneutral subscribers.
It all sounds so…good. But the ultimate theoretical question about targetneutral is one of accountability: Should producers or consumers be responsible for the pollution generated by their mutual commodity? On one hand, BP – a company making money hand-over-fist – could break from the industry and absorb the cost of carbon offsets for the gasoline it produces, thereby becoming the first oil company to go carbon neutral. Of course, it would be equally fair for consumers to accept responsibility for the carbon they personally generate.
Either way, whether BP’s movement towards sustainability stems from a genuine concern for the environment, or long-term positioning in the energy market, or simple greenwashing, cannot easily be determined. If nothing else, BP has declared itself as the least-terrible member of Big Oil.
Link to targetneutral
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December 21st, 2006 at 4:37 pm
I think you present a somewhat false dichtomy when you ask whether carbon offsetting should be the responsibility of consumers or producers, since ultimately consumers will absorb much of the cost in either case (unless government intervention targets their profits specifically-a viable, but unlikely scenario). Of course, if paying for carbon offsetting is left voluntary and in the hands of the consumer, the pace of progress may be slower than through a mandated or producer program.
In the end, it doesn’t seem like the most powerful change is going to come from the energy producerss of the today—beyond a lack of strong short and medium term incentives to change, there’s pure institutional and intellectual inertia to contend with. As with the revivification of electric car tech coming out of Silicon Valley, we should look to smaller innovators, not mega corporations to lead the way.
December 22nd, 2006 at 7:41 pm
I, will like to buy a gas station in north carolina