Portfolio

Selected work from the studio

Three projects at the intersection of ecological thinking, AI systems architecture, and brand strategy. Built privately, with research partners, and increasingly through the CoLab.

01In development

Business Habitat Calculator

Dougal Fleming (Green Business Team) & Middlesex University · funded by MDX, UKRI, NERC and IFB

Infrastructure Development

A software platform that helps companies strategise towards becoming Nature Positive — meeting them wherever they are on the journey.

Business Habitat Calculator

Dougal Fleming (Green Business Team) & Middlesex University · funded by MDX, UKRI, NERC and IFB

Category · Infrastructure Development

Status · In development

Visit Business Habitat Calculator

What it is

Business Habitat Calculator is a software platform that helps companies strategise towards becoming Nature Positive. It meets the company where they are along their sustainability journey — complete beginners or certified planet restorers. By collecting information, insight and data from across the organisation, the tool calls upon seasoned advice and experience to help companies make a compelling business case to all relevant stakeholders. Users can see how quick wins of avoiding and mitigating environmental impacts build momentum, while deciding how to weave bio-mimicry into operations, processes and supply chains.

Who it's for

Committed business leaders and consultants who believe sustaining-our-ability to trade isn't enough — that restoration of planet should be business as usual.

What we built

Catherine designed the platform architecture, data infrastructure, prompt architecture, and scoring methodology that powers the calculator. This included developing the HABITAT story arc — the narrative and strategic journey a business moves through from first assessment to nature-positive action — alongside a formal IP schedule documenting the methodology, taxonomy structures, and overlay logic as licensable intellectual property distinct from any single client deliverable.

What's distinctive

The platform applies ecological systems logic — interdependence, feedback loops, compound returns — as an analytical framework for how businesses relate to the places they operate in. The design philosophy: minimum cognitive load for the user, maximum strategic return from the data.

02In development

VCSE Value Mapper

Dr Amy Burnett · British Academy Policy Innovation Fellow, hosted by DCMS (Civil Society and Youth) · CEEDR, Middlesex University

Infrastructure Development

A multi-dimensional value typology that helps voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations see, name and prove the full value of their work.

VCSE Value Mapper

Dr Amy Burnett · British Academy Policy Innovation Fellow, hosted by DCMS (Civil Society and Youth) · CEEDR, Middlesex University

Category · Infrastructure Development

Status · In development

Visit VCSE Value Mapper

What it is

The VCSE Value Mapper builds on a tradition of value mapping tools in sustainability and business model research (notably Bocken et al., 2013), whilst addressing a distinct gap: the systematic invisibility of VCSE contributions within policy and funding frameworks. Unlike tools designed for corporate business model redesign, the VCSE Value Mapper applies a multi-dimensional typology developed inductively from VCSE sector practice, centred on community-defined value rather than market value capture.

Dr Amy Burnett, a Fellow hosted by the British Academy Policy Innovation Fellowship in the Civil Society and Youth team at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), developed the underlying VCSE value typology to understand how different value measures are (or not) being understood and measured. This Value Mapper animates the research for real-world application.

Who it's for

UK voluntary, community, and social enterprise organisations of any size — from a volunteer-run community garden to a multi-site development trust. If you create value for your community, this tool helps you see it, name it, and prove it.

03In beta

Keystone Brand Builder

Keystone Ecological — own product

Infrastructure Development

An AI-powered ecological brand development platform for mission-driven founders. Discovery, visibility, content and mission control — grounded in real ecological data, not generic AI outputs.

Keystone Brand Builder

Keystone Ecological — own product

Category · Infrastructure Development

Status · In beta

What it is

An AI-powered ecological brand development platform for mission-driven founders. Keystone Brand Builder guides founders through a structured discovery process that surfaces their brand identity, maps the field they belong to, and produces a complete visibility and content strategy — grounded in real ecological data, not generic AI outputs.

Who it's for

Ecological and regenerative founders. Purpose-led service businesses — coaches, consultants, educators. Mission-driven CIC, B-Corp, and VCSE leaders. Founders who already care about the work and need the scaffolding to be seen.

What we built

A platform structured around four sequential hubs. Brand Hub: guided discovery, the Keystone Canvas (a bento-grid strategy document), Wild Twin (a real species mirror for the brand), and Field Scan (mapping the academic and practitioner field). Visibility Hub: AI visibility scanning across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google, plus moodboard, starter kit, and a full visibility pack. Content Hub: content pillars, a 30-day distribution cascade, a focused writing room, and a response workshop for showing up in real conversations. Mission Control: monthly focus, publication tracking, and a distribution dashboard.

What's distinctive

Every output is grounded in the founder's own discovery — strict anti-hallucination rules mean the AI surfaces the brand rather than inventing it. The platform doesn't just use AI to generate content — it makes founders legible to AI systems, so their work appears when their ideal audience asks ChatGPT or Perplexity. The design is parasympathetic by principle: no dark patterns, no streaks-of-shame, no growth-hacking language. Neurodivergent-friendly hierarchy, editorial typography, room to breathe.

The thread across all three

Ecological thinking as an analytical framework — not a metaphor.

The same systems logic that governs living ecosystems applies to how businesses relate to the places they operate in, how community organisations articulate their value, and how mission-driven founders become visible. Thirty years of operational systems experience applied to one design principle: minimum cognitive load for the user, maximum strategic return from the data.

Ways to work together

Three kinds of work, two ways to commission it

The what and the how are separate questions. First, the kind of work — infrastructure, a single tool, or scoping consultancy. Then, the vehicle — privately commissioned through the studio, or structured through the CIC where the data sensitivity and trust signalling require it.

Infrastructure Development

Built for you, with you, for the long term.

Platform architecture, action taxonomies, prompt and scoring systems, ethical AI design. Long-form partnerships where we co-build the systems your work depends on — including the IP scaffolding that lets the methodology travel beyond a single deliverable.

Timeline · 3–6 months

Investment · From £15K

Tool Development

One tool. Done well. Shipped fast.

Single-purpose tools, backend workflows, full-stack MVPs, white-label APIs. For when you know what you need and want it built without ceremony — but still want it built with the end user, and the story arc, in mind.

Timeline · 1–4 weeks

Investment · From £2K

Consultancy

Ecological project scoping — the technical build and the story arc, together.

Two lenses on your project in one conversation. The technical lens: what needs to be built, what data, what APIs, what architecture. The ecological lens: who and what does this transform, what's the story arc of the idea (not just the build), what field are you part of, what partnerships and research conversations could you be contributing to. Most technical consultants can scope a build. Most brand consultants can shape a narrative. This is both — applied to your specific project, whether you go on to build it with the studio or somewhere else. The Business Habitat Calculator started here: Dougal arrived with a technical ambition, and through structured conversation we teased out the HABITAT story arc alongside the platform architecture. Even in technical builds, everything boils down to story.

Timeline · 1 session – 4 weeks

Investment · From £500

How it's commissioned

Studio by default. CIC where it's needed.

Studio

Privately commissioned. Fast, focused, accountable to one table — for founders, funded teams, and organisations who need infrastructure built without ceremony. Most engagements live here.

CIC

In formation · 2026

The same three kinds of work, structured through a community interest company when the project needs protections around sensitive datasets, deeper trust signalling, or grant-funded open methodology. The governance scaffolding that makes serious partnership with academic institutions, eNGOs, and public-sector data holders possible.

Let's see if we're a fit

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