* Oil companies try to present climate-friendly image
* Flagship Shell promotion triggers complaints from public
* Concerns centre on portrayal of carbon offset schemes
(Adds Shell comment, context, bullets)
By Matthew Green and Andrew R.C. Marshall
LONDON, March 2 (Reuters) - Britain's advertising watchdog
has opened an investigation into claims by Shell that
customers at its petrol stations can "drive carbon neutral",
after receiving complaints from members of the public, the
regulator said on Monday.
The challenge to Shell's flagship promotion underscores the
dilemmas oil and gas majors face as they seek to market their
products despite increasing global concerns about the role of
fossil fuels in driving climate change.
Shell said in October that it would become the first petrol
retailer in Britain to offset the carbon dioxide emissions from
customers' fuel purchases at its service stations at no extra
cost by backing forestry schemes.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it began an
investigation into radio advertisements for the promotion after
17 listeners complained that they found them misleading.
"We've launched a formal investigation into whether the
radio ad clearly discloses enough information in relation to
this offer and will publish our findings in due course," said
Freddie Alcock, a media officer at the ASA.
Last year, the watchdog approached Norwegian oil and gas
company Equinor after receiving a complaint over an
advertisement by the company on the London underground that
implied natural gas was a "low-carbon" energy source.
The case was resolved informally when Equinor, which had
discontinued the campaign by the time the complaint was
assessed, agreed not to repeat the claim in future campaigns,
the ASA told Reuters.
The watchdog, which has the power to ban advertisements it
deems misleading, did not make the content of the complaints
against Shell available. The regulator will also hear from the
company and a ruling could take some months to deliver.
"Prior to launching this to our customers we did a huge
amount of work and due diligence on our Drive Carbon Neutral
offer, and we are happy to speak to the ASA to answer their
questions," said a Shell spokesperson.
Shell also referred Reuters to a company webpage https://www.goplus.shell.com/en-gb
that offers a detailed explanation of how its carbon offset
programme works.
Carbon offsetting rests on the principle that companies can
neutralise the impact of their emissions by paying money to
plant forests or restore other types of ecosystems capable of
absorbing an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide.
Critics of the schemes say that they give the false
impression that it is possible to take meaningful action to slow
global warming without following the advice of climate
scientists to rapidly scale back the use of fossil fuels.
Shell sees its vast global network of petrol stations as key
to its hopes of remaining profitable even if the world manages
to rapidly transition to the kind of low-carbon economy needed
to avoid worst-case climate change scenarios.
The Anglo-Dutch oil and gas major initially launched its
"drive carbon neutral" offer in the Netherlands in April before
expanding it to Britain, which is due to host a major U.N.
climate summit in Glasgow from Nov. 9-20.
(Reporting by Matthew Green; additional reporting by Ron Bousso
in London; Editing by William Maclean and Jonathan Oatis)