Historic Victorian winery on track to be carbon neutral without offsets by 2025

The operation near Nagambie, where Hayley Purbrick's family has been making wine for five generations, offsets all the carbon dioxide it creates. 

The winery's journey to becoming carbon neutral began in 1998, when trees were planted to revegetate the property, and in 2008 it undertook its first carbon audit to start looking at ways to lower its carbon footprint.

"It's just the right thing to do," Ms Purbrick said.

"I think if you're a business and you're not doing these types of things then you're missing out on the future of the next generation."

Over the past decade, the business has reduced carbon emissions by 45 per cent by using solar power, revegetating areas and using heat-reflective paint on its restaurant roof.

"They use it on rocket ships," Ms Purbrick said.

"It's a tin, round roof and it was just creating so much internal heat in summer, we had put in three gigantic air-conditioning units to keep it cool.

"When we didn't have them on we had customers struggling with heat stress — it was like an immediate impact on the comfort as soon as we put the paint  on.

"That was very cost-effective — it cost $12,000 and saved us at least $60,000."

'Extremely close' to naturally neutral

Despite all of the technological development and environmental projects, Tahbilk still has to purchase credits to be carbon neutral.

But the business is not far off from being able to offset all of its carbon naturally.

Lachie Thomas started working at Tahbilk after hearing about its environmental practices and is now its environment and vineyard research analyst — an uncommon role for a winery.

"Grape growing and wine making is very influenced by the climate and we are seeing the impact of the climate," he said.

"The winery industry is taking a good front foot on the fight for climate change, so I hope in the future it becomes a lot more common for wineries to employ people who look at the environment."

Mr Thomas's job is to look at the annual carbon audits and find ways to sequester the carbon the business emits.

He says the business is "Extremely close" to not having to buy carbon credits to offset its emissions.

"[About] 120 hectares of land has been revegetated, so it allows us to capture just under 2,500 tonnes of CO2 into the soils in the property here, which is just short of the amount that we are responsible for emitting," Mr Thomas said.

"We are 97% on the way to being naturally balanced carbon neutral, which is a goal we hope to achieve in the next few years."

'All the rage in 2021'

Ms Purbrick said accreditations and standards were new when Tahbilk had its first audit in 2008.

But Nick Watts, the technical manager at Auckland-based Taito Envirocare, which certified the business as carbon neutral, said more businesses were getting on board.

"Carbon is kind of a new space — it's all the rage in 2021," he said.

"It's kind of only come in the mainstream in the last few years — all of a sudden household names were coming on board wanting to get measured.

"We could be looking at a future where we see carbon numbers on most products on the shelves, like a nutritional label.

"Like you'd put something back on the shelf if there's too much sugar in it, we could put back something because the impact on the climate is too heavy."

Above | Hayley Purbrick has helped her family's winery reduce emissions by 45 per cent.

Story By | Annie Brown