THERE is a windmill at a BP service station in South London. It generates electricity for the station’s fuel pumps but it also provides a visual demonstration of BP’s commitment to develop sustainable forms of energy, to go “beyond petroleum”, the company’s slogan.

Like all windmills it doesn’t always work. But with a good southwesterly breeze it turns merrily as the traffic whirls around the Wandsworth Bridge roundabout.

Windmills and solar panels — some BP stations generate power with the company’s own solar cells — might seem more of a gimmick than a business opportunity for a company that sells petrol. You might even wonder whether the becalmed windmill was black propaganda against the British Government’s renewables programme.

But BP is not like that; it has invested $200 million (£125 million) in a solar power business that has yet to turn a profit. It was the first oil company to state publicly that climate change was a problem linked to carbon emissions. It declared its support for the Kyoto Protocol and set itself a more aggressive target — to reduce carbon emissions by 10 per cent below 1990 levels.

Being good is not enough for BP; it wants to to be seen to do good. In search of the public’s affection, the oil company launched a big advertising campaign in America, hammering home the environmental message and the “beyond petroleum” slogan.

“Our goal is to make solar a $1 billion business by 2007 . . . It’s a start.” announces a billboard in New York’s Times Square. For the American press, it was a bit of a false start. With a sneer, Fortune magazine dubbed BP’s campaign Beyond Persuasion. “Here’s a novel advertising strategy,” wrote Fortune, “Pitch your least important products and ignore your most important one.” The New York Times asked the question, “How Green is BP?” in a lengthy article that recited the oil company’s equivocation over its stance on exploring for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a national park in Alaska full of caribou, polar bear and migrating birds. Worse still, The Washington Times suggested that BP’s active support of the Kyoto global warming treaty was a cynical ploy to secure a competitive advantage for Britain, because the treaty would devastate the oil-dependent US.

It seems astonishing that the company should plug “beyond petroleum” after the roasting it received from the British press in July 2000 when Lord Browne of Madingley announced the rebranding and revealed the sun-burst logo. But that is to misunderstand the pressures facing the oil industry.

At one level “beyond petroleum” is a pitch to the green consumer, a recognition that the hydrocarbon age will end, some day. But Lord Browne is an engineer and a realist. He will tell anyone who cares to ask that BP’s core business will be oil for the next half century.

So, where is BP going beyond petroleum? The answer lies in Angola, Azerbaijan, China, Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam. Just about everywhere BP drills wells, the oil company has been forced to take on the role of a regional economic and social development agency.

BP is not unique. Shell is going beyond petroleum in Nigeria, and ExxonMobil, the big bad bogeyman of the Greens, the company that dares to suggest that the link between carbon and climate change is not proven, is going beyond petroleum in Chad.

The oil companies have little choice. Their business is not sustainable because oil runs out. In Britain, BP is laying off staff at Sullom Voe, the oil terminal in the Shetlands that serves the declining Brent field. In Alaska, BP is working flat out to sustain production at the maturing Prudhoe Bay reservoirs but the growth phase is over and decline is imminent. Hence the Alaskan Government’s aggressive promotion of development in its Wildlife Refuge to BP’s obvious embarrassment.

This is what lies “beyond petroleum”. Alaska needs jobs and tax revenues but American voters want wilderness and polar bears. They also want oil and it explains BP’s ambivalence — at one point supporting the pro-development lobby and then withdrawing. “It is a decision for the American people,” Lord Browne says.

In the end, it is not BP’s problem. When Alaskan and Scottish oil wells run dry, Washington and London will lend a hand to Aberdeen and Anchorage.

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