In 2020, Shell Canada made a promise it couldn’t keep.
Shell’s “Drive Carbon Neutral” program touted that Canadians could reduce their carbon footprints by buying carbon offsets for a few extra cents at the pump.
When the Greenpeace Canada team saw these ads, we immediately knew something was up.
For starters, Shell’s program was focused on forest-based offsets — but planting trees can’t compensate for ongoing fossil fuel emissions. Hotter, dryer weather is causing forest offsets to literally go up in smoke. Logging and other industrial disturbances in the Canadian boreal are also undermining the forest’s ability to absorb and store carbon.
Greenpeace Canada’s nature campaign team decided to file a complaint to the Competition Bureau for false advertising. We argued that Shell’s campaign was misleading, and cited the company’s inability to prove its program could actually offset fossil fuel emissions.
In December 2023, the Competition Bureau confirmed it had started an investigation into Shell’s advertising. Then we noticed Shell had removed any and all mention of its “Drive Carbon Neutral” program from its Canadian website and app. POOF! Gone.
After some pressing, Shell confirmed it retired the “Drive Carbon Neutral” program in Canada in November 2023. But Shell has yet to respond to our calls for transparency, issue an official retraction or apology, and continues to run these misleading ads in other countries.
“People deserve to have accurate information about what’s really causing the climate crisis and what’s going to solve it,” said Shane Moffatt, Head of Nature and Food Campaign at Greenpeace Canada. “They don’t deserve to be duped by corporations like Shell with these slick marketing campaigns into thinking a few trees can offset massive fossil fuel emissions.”
Beyond its advertising campaign, Shell Canada is still actively promoting false climate solutions like carbon offsetting to the federal government. That’s why Greenpeace Canada will keep urging the federal government to ditch offsets and instead focus on actual emission reductions and biodiversity protection.
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