# Engineering Design Document (EDD) & Step by step guide for ESG GPT API and Chat Interface

## 1. Introduction
This document outlines the engineering design for developing an ESG GPT API and a chat interface similar to ChatGPT, leveraging GPT-4 and Large Language Models (LLMs).

### 1.1 Purpose
To provide a detailed technical roadmap for constructing a robust ESG-focused conversational AI platform.

### 1.2 Scope
The scope includes the development of a scalable API backend and a user-friendly chat interface for ESG queries.

### 1.3 Definitions
- **ESG**: Environmental, Social, and Governance
- **GPT-4**: Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4
- **LLM**: Large Language Model
- **API**: Application Programming Interface

## 2. System Overview
The system will consist of a cloud-hosted backend with GPT-4/LLM integration, a RESTful API, and a web-based chat interface.

## 3. Architecture Design
### 3.1 High-Level Architecture
- **Backend Server**: Hosts the API and integrates with GPT-4/LLM for processing ESG queries.
- **Database**: Stores conversation logs, user data, and analytics.
- **Frontend Application**: A web interface for users to interact with the ESG GPT model.
- **Security Layer**: Ensures data encryption and secure API access.

### 3.2 Component Design
#### 3.2.1 ESG GPT API
- Built on a RESTful architecture to handle requests and responses in JSON format.
- Scalable to handle concurrent users and dynamic loads.
- Integrated with GPT-4/LLM for query processing and response generation.

#### 3.2.2 Chat Interface
- User-friendly web application with real-time interaction capabilities.
- Session management to handle ongoing conversations.
- UI components for displaying ESG data, analytics, and GPT-4 generated responses.

## 4. Detailed Design
### 4.1 Backend Server
- **Language/Framework**: Python with Flask/Django for rapid development and ease of integration with AI models.
- **GPT-4/LLM Integration**: Utilize OpenAI's APIs or custom-trained models hosted on AI platforms like Hugging Face or AWS Sagemaker.

### 4.2 Database
- **Type**: NoSQL for flexible schema design, e.g., MongoDB.
- **Data Model**: Conversational logs, user profiles, and session data.

### 4.3 Security Layer
- **Authentication**: OAuth 2.0 for secure access.
- **Encryption**: TLS for data in transit and at rest.
- **Compliance**: Adhere to GDPR, CCPA, and other relevant regulations.

### 4.4 Frontend Application
- **Framework**: React or Vue.js for a responsive and dynamic UI.
- **State Management**: Redux or Vuex to manage the state of user sessions and data.

## 5. API Endpoints
- `/api/v1/query` for processing ESG queries.
- `/api/v1/session` for managing user sessions.
- `/api/v1/user` for user account management.

## 6. Data Flow
1. User sends a query via the chat interface.
2. The query is transmitted to the backend via the API.
3. The backend sends the query to the GPT-4/LLM service.
4. GPT-4/LLM processes the query and returns the response.
5. The backend sends the response back to the frontend.
6. The user receives the response displayed in the chat interface.

## 7. Testing Strategy
- **Unit Testing**: For individual components using Jest for frontend and PyTest for backend.
- **Integration Testing**: To ensure all parts of the system work together seamlessly.
- **Load Testing**: Using tools like JMeter to simulate concurrent users.

## 8. Deployment Strategy
- **Containerization**: Docker for creating a scalable and portable environment.
- **Orchestration**: Kubernetes for managing containerized applications.
- **CI/CD Pipeline**: Jenkins or GitHub Actions for automating the deployment process.

## 9. Monitoring and Maintenance
- **Monitoring Tools**: Prometheus and Grafana for real-time monitoring.
- **Logging**: ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) for logging and analysis.

## 10. Documentation and Training
- **Technical Documentation**: For developers and system administrators.
- **User Guides**: For end-users to navigate the chat interface.

## 11. Conclusion
The ESG GPT API and chat interface represent a significant step towards accessible ESG information and analysis. This document provides a blueprint for the development and deployment of the system.

## Appendices
- **A**: List of ESG data sources.
- **B**: API documentation.
- **C**: Security compliance checklist.

——-
# Guide for Developing the model
## Step 1: Define the Objectives
Understand the end goals of the ESG GPT application. It could be for generating reports, answering queries, or providing ESG scores.

## Step 2: Data Collection
Collect a diverse set of data that covers the ESG spectrum:
- **Sustainability Reports**: From company websites and databases like Global Reporting Initiative.
- **Financial Reports**: Annual and quarterly reports, especially those with ESG sections.
- **ESG Ratings**: Data from agencies like MSCI, Sustainalytics.
- **Regulatory Filings**: SEC filings, EPA records, etc.
- **ESG News Articles**: Trusted news sources on ESG developments.
- **Academic Journals**: Research papers on ESG topics.
- **Social Media**: Public sentiment on ESG matters (with appropriate privacy considerations).

## Step 3: Data Extraction
Identify and extract relevant ESG information:
- **Quantitative Data**: Metrics like carbon emissions, water usage, diversity figures, etc.
- **Qualitative Data**: Policies on corporate governance, social responsibility statements, etc.
- **Time Series Data**: For tracking changes in ESG performance over time.

## Step 4: Data Storage
Store the data in a structured format:
- **Databases**: Use SQL or NoSQL databases like PostgreSQL or MongoDB.
- **Data Lakes**: For raw, unstructured data, use services like Amazon S3 or Azure Data Lake.

## Step 5: Data Preprocessing
Prepare the data for NLP tasks:
- **Cleaning**: Remove noise, correct errors, and handle missing values.
- **Tokenization**: Break text into tokens or words.
- **Normalization**: Convert text to a standard format (lowercasing, stemming, etc.).
- **Vectorization**: Transform text into numerical representations like TF-IDF or embeddings.

## Step 6: Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Apply NLP techniques to understand and generate text:
- **Sentiment Analysis**: To gauge public sentiment on ESG issues.
- **Named Entity Recognition (NER)**: To identify and classify ESG-related entities in text.
- **Topic Modeling**: To discover the main themes within ESG content.

## Step 7: Model Development
Build the AI model:
- **Selection**: Choose a base GPT model (like GPT-4) for fine-tuning.
- **Fine-tuning**: Adjust the model on ESG-specific data to specialize its responses.
- **Validation**: Use a separate dataset to validate the model’s performance.

## Step 8: Model Training
Train the model with the prepared datasets:
- **Transfer Learning**: Leverage pre-trained weights as the starting point.
- **Supervised Learning**: If labeled data is available for specific ESG tasks.
- **Reinforcement Learning**: To optimize for high-quality ESG interactions.

## Step 9: Model Evaluation
Assess model performance with appropriate metrics like accuracy, F1-score, and domain-specific KPIs.

## Step 10: Model Deployment
Deploy the model for inference:
- **APIs**: Create RESTful APIs for accessing the model.
- **Server**: Host the model on a cloud platform for scalability.

## Step 11: Model Monitoring and Updating
Continuously monitor the model for performance and bias:
- **Performance Metrics**: Track how the model is performing in production.
- **Update Strategy**: Plan for retraining the model with new data.

## Step 12: Product Development
Create the final product offerings:
- **ESG Chat Interface**: A user-friendly chat application for interacting with the GPT model.
- **ESG Analytics Dashboard**: Visualization tools for displaying ESG metrics and insights.

## Step 13: Documentation and Training
Document the process and train end-users:
- **Technical Documentation**: For maintaining and updating the model.
- **User Documentation**: Guides on how to use the ESG GPT tool effectively.

## Final Outcome
The data scientist should create:
- A fine-tuned ESG GPT model capable of understanding and generating ESG-related content.
- APIs for accessing the ESG GPT model functionalities.
- A chat interface for user interaction with the model.
- An analytics dashboard that presents ESG insights derived from the model.

----
# Data model
For an ESG GPT project that requires handling a mix of structured and unstructured data, including time series data for metrics and textual data for NLP processing, a polyglot persistence approach might be optimal, where different data storage technologies are used to handle different types of data effectively. Here is a suggested database design and data model:

### Database Design:

**1. Relational Database (PostgreSQL):**
- **Structured Data**: Store structured data like company profiles, ESG scores, and quantitative metrics.
- **Benefits**: ACID transactions, complex queries, mature ecosystem.
- **Schema**:
- `companies` table for company profiles.
- `esg_scores` table for storing ESG scores with foreign keys linked to `companies`.
- `metrics` table for quantitative data, indexed by time for time series analysis.

**2. Document-Oriented Database (MongoDB):**
- **Unstructured Data**: Store unstructured textual data like news articles, reports, and social media posts.
- **Benefits**: Schema-less, good for unstructured data, horizontal scaling.
- **Schema**:
- `reports` collection where each document stores information from one report.
- `articles` collection for news and analysis articles, with tags for quick retrieval.

**3. Time Series Database (InfluxDB):**
- **Time Series Data**: Specifically for ESG metrics that are tracked over time.
- **Benefits**: Optimized for time-stamped data, efficient data compression, and retrieval.
- **Schema**:
- Measurements for different ESG metrics like carbon emissions, water usage, etc.

**4. Graph Database (Neo4j):**
- **Relationships and Networks**: For analyzing relationships between entities, such as corporate affiliations and impact networks.
- **Benefits**: Excellent for complex queries involving deep relationships.
- **Schema**:
- Nodes for companies, regulatory bodies, etc.
- Edges represent relationships like ownership, partnerships, regulatory actions, etc.

### Data Model:

- **Company Profile**: ID, Name, Industry, Location, etc.
- **ESG Scores**: Company ID, Date, ESG Score, Source, etc.
- **Metrics**: Metric ID, Company ID, Timestamp, Value, etc.
- **Reports**: ID, Company ID, Text Content, Date, Source URL, etc.
- **Articles**: ID, Title, Text Content, Date, Tags, etc.
- **Relationships**: Entity IDs, Relationship Type, etc.

### Justification for Database Choices:

- **PostgreSQL**: Chosen for its reliability in handling structured data and complex queries, which is necessary for storing and analyzing quantitative ESG metrics and the relationships between entities.
- **MongoDB**: Its flexibility is ideal for storing a variety of unstructured textual data, which is common in ESG data collection from reports and news articles. It also supports rapid development due to its schema-less nature.
- **InfluxDB**: Specifically designed to handle time series data efficiently, which is a significant part of ESG data tracking changes in metrics over time.
- **Neo4j**: Provides the ability to easily visualize and query complex networks, which is beneficial for understanding the interconnections in ESG data, such as supply chains or corporate hierarchies.

Using this polyglot persistence approach allows the system to leverage the strengths of each database technology, providing a comprehensive solution for the varied data needs of an ESG GPT project. This setup would ensure efficient data storage, retrieval, and analysis, which are critical for the performance of the ESG GPT model.