The ELM Project

The Ecology Language Model (ELM) addresses the critical disconnect between initial Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) compliance and the practical reality of 30-year ecological management, particularly for small site developers.

Our primary motivation stems from the UK's Environment Act 2021, which mandates BNG for all developments, creating over 12,000 annual projects in the West Midlands alone. While existing tools calculate biodiversity units, they provide minimal support for actual stewardship over the required three decades. This gap particularly impacts small projects with limited ecological expertise, creating both a significant market opportunity and environmental need.

ELM reimagines BNG management through three integrated innovations:

• Conversational Management Interface: Replacing static documents with a natural language conversation that is the management plan itself, allowing non-specialists to access expertise through simple text interaction
• Persistent Knowledge Architecture: Creating an immutable record that preserves not just what was done, but why decisions were made and what outcomes resulted, ensuring management continuity across organizational changes
• Collective Intelligence Network: Connecting similar sites to build a growing knowledge commons, identifying patterns across hundreds of management approaches to provide increasingly sophisticated recommendations

Our target market includes:

• Small development sites across the West Midlands
• Community organizations managing transferred BNG assets
• Planning authorities seeking verification solutions

The project will deliver three key outputs:

1. # A functioning prototype of the ELM platform with specialized language model core
2. # Integration with existing BNG calculation tools
3. # Initial ecological knowledge framework with West Midlands-specific content

These outputs will drive business growth by establishing a novel subscription service, creating valuable IP in specialized language model development, and positioning Axis Design Architects at the intersection of digital technology and ecological stewardship - a rapidly growing sector.

Our previous work includes:

• Initial concept development
• Stakeholder interviews with West Midlands developers
• Technical architecture planning
• Market research confirming the gap between compliance tools and practical management guidance

We will protect and exploit outputs through:

1. # Technical IP around our specialized language model training methodology
2. # Copyright on our knowledge framework and management interface
3. # A business model balancing open knowledge commons with premium services
4. # Strategic partnerships with regional ecological organizations and planning authorities