About us
Net Zero is not just about business – it’s a personal passion.
Our vision
We are on a mission to provide practical help to guide companies to achieve all their sustainability and environmental ambitions and attain net zero.
The team at Optopia are genuinely committed to net zero. We want to say to our children that we really contributed to reducing carbon emissions every day, at work and at home, for the benefit of our planet and the quality of all our lives.
Whether you refer to us as sustainability consultants, net zero experts or energy reduction specialists, we want to ensure that you can reduce your carbon footprint and confidently achieve all your environmental goals.
Our values
Collaborative
We work collaboratively as a team with our clients to ensure we deliver really useful, practical and implementable outputs from our projects.
Expertise
We've built a network of professionals who support our core team providing proven capability, expertise and experience for our clients projects.
Curiosity
We love learning about the organisations we work with, and keeping up with technological innovation, so we can bring the latest developments to our clients.
Our team
Optopia’s sustainability consultants and wider team work collaboratively with you, bringing carbon and energy expertise with a wealth of knowledge and experience in successful change management projects.
Founder, Mark Mills, orchestrates a team of professional consultants and contractors across multiple disciplines, united by a passion for playing their part, and doing all they can to help avert the impending climate crisis.
Let’s introduce you to some of the Optopia team…
Mark Mills
Founder/CEO
Mark is a Chartered Electrical Engineer with a MSc in Project Management and Leadership. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering Technology and brings 35 years industry expertise from the UK and internationally. When Mark is not working, he loves to be out mountain biking or running on the South Downs.
Caroline Pitt
Sustainability Associate
Caroline is an energy and carbon expert who brings over 20 years’ experience directing and managing consulting projects in various sectors. With a strong track record in evaluating options and outcomes through qualitative and quantitative research. When not working, Caroline will be walking along the Thames soaking up the view.
Anna Delicata
Data Analyst
Anna has over 15 years experience in finance, HR and Reward specialising in large scale data reporting, process optimisation and data efficiency. She has gained experience within various large organisations such as Twinings, James Hay and Friends Life. In her free time Anna enjoys park runs and days out with her 3 young children.
Claire Atkins
Quality Manager
Claire brings over 20 years of experience in the Finance and IT training sector, with a strong focus on establishing company administration and quality management systems. She is dedicated to ensuring staff engagement, consistent adherence to professional standards, and driving continuous improvement—key elements that underpin our ISO 9001 accreditation. If she's not at her desk, Claire is wild swimming or hiding from her family with a good book.
Lizzie Tinwell
Administration Manager
Lizzie has over 20 years experience in the education sector which includes advisory, mentoring and training roles. Lizzie is highly organised and experienced, ensuring that we consistently deliver a quality product to our clients and has been instrumental in developed our quality management systems and ISO9001 accreditation. When not working, Lizzie spends time looking after her two young children and swimming & walking along the South Coast.
Our story
Optopia was born after our founder, Mark, attended a net zero event in 2021.
He listened to the CEO of a FTSE 500 company talking about his company's plans for reaching net zero by 2030. What particularly resonated was the CEO's initial introduction, where he shared a conversation he had with his teenage son.
The CEO’s son was angry about the overall lack of progress in reaching net zero. He was frustrated that his dad, an influential CEO of a large company, did not seem to be doing enough to ensure that the emissions of his company and sector were reducing fast enough.
Mark started thinking about what he could say to his sons if they asked him about his efforts to help combat climate change and reduce our impact on the environment.
His answer back then would have had to be "I'm not doing as much as I could!"
This was Mark's call to action. In his career he had already been frustrated by the lack of business support available to help leaders develop real actionable plans to reduce energy consumption, emissions and the overall environmental impact of their activities.
So Optopia was born, with a mission of helping guide companies to achieve their sustainability and environmental ambitions.
Optopia brings together expertise from multiple sectors and fields to work closely with our clients, to not only help them understand the environmental impacts of their activities, but more importantly, identifying real actionable steps they can take to reduce these.
The name Optopia was created from a blend of 'optimise' and 'utopia', which encompasses our vision of a future optimised world where everything is in balance.
Focused on best practice protocols and standards
Our aim is to exceed our clients’ expectations for quality of service.
We align our service with the latest environmental directives, research and technology as it becomes available.
This includes positioning all of our work with the GHG protocol.
The GHG Protocol establishes comprehensive global standardised frameworks to measure and manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from private and public sector operations, value chains and mitigation actions.
Our sustainability consultants and all the team follow best practices in project delivery by using an APMP project management approach, along with being committed to delivering a quality service through our ISO 9001:2015 certification.
