The Pilio story
Pilio comes from the Latin name for butterfly, papilio. We follow the philosophy of the butterfly effect - that small changes can lead to big transformations. This is why we’re committed to supporting businesses to make positive changes on an organisational level that catalyse a wider transformation to net zero carbon.
Pilio Expertise
Spun out of the University of Oxford in 2011, Pilio combines academic rigour with decades of hands-on experience in energy and sustainability management. Our founders, Dr Catherine Bottrill and Dr Russell Layberry, are former Oxford researchers who have since led over 300 building energy audits, 20 ESOS assessments, and numerous carbon strategies, life-cycle analyses, and sustainability action plans.
Our vision is to enable deep organisational transformation — reducing costs, meeting compliance, and unlocking climate ambition. By doing so, we accelerate solutions aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Pilio’s journey includes the development of a sophisticated energy and carbon management software platform (sold to Italian sustainability leader GFP in 2024), and today we continue to innovate with training programmes and digital tools such as EnergyMate, our AI-enabled assistant for facility managers.
What sets us apart is not just our academic foundation, but our practitioner expertise.
We know how real buildings operate, how organisations make decisions, and how to translate sustainability from aspiration into daily practice.