Z offers drivers carbon offsets

Motorists can now pay Z Energy to offset their carbon emissions when they buy fuel.

Drivers who pay for petrol using Z’s online app will be able to see the cost of offsetting their emissions through a feature called Carbon Count that the company is launching today.

They will then have the choice of making a payment, via Z, to forestry company Permanent Forests New Zealand to offset the impact.

Z says the cost of offsetting emissions from a 50 litre tank of fuel will be about $4.30.

Spokeswoman Victoria Crockford said Z had to do some forecasting of the expected takeup in order to get the scheme off the ground. It was partly basing its assumptions on the take-up of Air New Zealand’s ‘‘FlyNeutral’’ service, she said.

Last year, Air New Zealand passengers used FlyNeutral to fully or partially offset carbon emissions on about 4 per cent of flight bookings.

Z hoped it would get at least a similar level of support for its scheme, Crockford said.

‘‘We would probably be surprised because it is new, but we would be extremely pleased if we hit that target quickly.’’

Air New Zealand had seen uptake of FlyNeutral ‘‘start to ‘hockey stick’, which to us indicates consumer preferences are changing,’’ she said.

Permanent Forests NZ is involved in 43 forestry projects covering 9200 hectares that are accredited as part of the Government-established Permanent Forests Sink Initiative and whose primary goal is carbon sequestration.

It says forests accredited under the Government scheme must be maintained as ‘‘continuous cover canopy forests’’ for 99 years. Sixty per cent of its plantings are of native trees and the remainder ‘‘exotics’’.

Z chief executive Mike Bennetts said it fully endorsed the goal of New Zealand achieving ‘‘net-zero emissions’’ by 2050.

‘‘We know we can’t ask our customers to take action for 2050 without doing that ourselves.

‘‘That’s why we have set a fiveyear target for our operational emissions to be 30 per cent lower than our 2017 baseline,’’ he said.