Definitions — The Pehta Vocabulary

Claims & statuses

Pehta-Aligned Statement#: A public report that uses the Framework's Topics or metric definitions — in whole or in part — without being issued under the Standard. Carries a required disclaimer enumerating the Topics not addressed, metric-level discipline for every Pehta-defined figure used, and no conformance language, Entry Declaration, or year count. Clause 1.5.1(a)
Pehta Entry Statement#: The middle status: prepared under the Standard, addressing every mandatory Topic at its disclosed Declared Coverage, carrying an Entry Declaration and year count — but no conformance claim, and no external assurance required. The honest, complete first footing. Clause 1.5.1(b) / Appendix E
Pehta Disclosure Statement#: A report carrying a conformance claim — available only when six testable conditions are met, including full Topic coverage, rights-holder access, and a signed Management Assertion. Clause 1.5.2
Reporting Year (RY-1…RY-4)#: The adoption clock: RY-1 is the first complete twelve-month period commencing on or after the Formal Adoption Date, with boundary coverage and assurance depth scaling each year after. Clause 9.0.2
Formal Adoption Date#: The date the entity's governing body formally adopts the Standard — the anchor from which every Reporting Year runs. PT1 / Clause 9.0.2
Boundary (Unit / Enterprise)#: What a Statement covers: a defined Unit (a project, site, or portfolio) or the Enterprise. Adoption phases by boundary — never by Topic. Clause 5.4
Topic completeness#: Every Statement addresses Topics PT1–PT8 and PT10 (PT9 where a Nation activates it); genuine inapplicability is disclosed as "Not Applicable" with rationale — there is no deferral pathway. Clause 9.1.4
Declared Coverage#: The disclosed proportion of the relevant in-scope population for which conforming data was obtained — computed per Topic and presented beside the metric it qualifies, never buried in notes. Partial capture with coverage disclosed is conformant; a partial figure without it is not. Clause 5.8
Three Versions of a Statement#: One measurement basis serves three versions: internal evidence, each Nation’s own scoped data, and aggregated public disclosure. Nation versions are delivered within the status-specific period and lodged in the Disclosure Registry where operational. No Nation position is sought or recorded. Delivery, correction, silence, and independent assurance remain distinct. Clauses 5.10, 7.9.10–7.9.11
Smaller Reporting Entity#: An entity under proposed thresholds (consolidated revenue below $50M and fewer than 250 employees — under consultation, Question 24) eligible for defined reliefs: a 60% spend-coverage floor, five-year retention, a simplified advisory mechanism, and the simplified filing template — each disclosed when applied. Clause 1.8
Management Assertion#: A signed executive statement taking responsibility for the disclosures, their evidence, and their conformance — the accountability document assurance is anchored to. Clause 8.2

Roles & governance

Rights-holder#: An Indigenous Nation or community holding rights recognized under section 35 and UNDRIP — categorically different from a stakeholder, and given precedence where interests conflict. Clause 4.1.2
Materially affected Indigenous Community#: A Community to which a Statement attributes benefits or interests, or whose territory or rights the reported activities materially engage — the trigger for access, challenge, and testimonial rights. Clause 7.9
Pehta Disclosure Officer (PDO)#: The named individual accountable for the entity's Pehta reporting — the single human answerable for access offers, challenge clocks, and Statement integrity. Clause 7.3
Community Identifier Register#: The rights-holder-governed index of Indigenous Community identifiers that ties every attributed data point to a Nation; Nations control their own entries, and inclusion is never a determination of rights, title, or status. Clause 4.7.1
"Indigenous — General"#: The label for amounts that genuinely cannot be attributed to a specific Community — usable only with a disclosed rationale, which every materially affected Nation may review and challenge. General labels are not a route around review. Clause 4.7.3 / 7.9.4

Employment & identity

Economic Participation (EP)#: The Framework's employment metric: the Indigenous share of gross compensation — not headcount — with identical components in numerator and denominator, disaggregated by occupation level. PT3.3.2
Gross Compensation#: Total pre-deduction remuneration traceable to payroll — the denominator discipline that keeps EP honest. NDS §3
AMDA#: The Anonymized Matched Data Approach: an independent operator collects voluntary identity declarations and links them to payroll through a non-identifying key, so the employer only ever receives aggregates. PT3.3.1
AMDA matching key#: The non-identifying code linking a declaration to payroll. It can never encode identity, Nation, or verification status, and the code-to-person correspondence lives solely with the operator. PT3.3.1.5
Participation coverage rate#: The share of the in-scope workforce that responded to the AMDA process — disclosed with every EP figure. Because the denominator is total compensation, low coverage can only understate Indigenous participation, never inflate it. PT3.3.1.4
Generalized Occupation Levels (GOL)#: The seven-level occupation scale on which EP is disaggregated — showing whether Indigenous employment reaches the decision table or stops at the gate. Appendix C

Contributions & project benefits

Net eligible contribution#: A contribution counted net of any tangible business benefit received in return — sponsorships with marketing rights, for example, count only the excess. (This "net" is unrelated to procurement's net; see Net Indigenous Procurement.) PT5.3
LBG categories#: The standard classification of contribution forms — cash, time, in-kind, management costs — used so contribution totals are comparable across entities. PT5.3 / PT6.3
Project benefits (PT6)#: The negotiated project value exchange — revenue shares, capacity funding, delivered benefits — linked to specific projects and Nations. Equity distributions are never PT6; they live in PT10. PT6 / PT10.3.5

Procurement

Indigenous-owned supplier#: A business more than 50% Indigenous-owned and Indigenous-controlled, with classification evidence current at the transaction date. Subtype: Nation-owned (owned by a Nation or Nation-controlled entity). Verification statuses — third-party certified or evidenced self-declaration — are disclosed, not blended. PT7.3.2
Indigenous-linked supplier#: A business with a formal, signed Indigenous relationship creating defined economic participation rights — evidenced by the instrument itself. Letters of support are insufficient. Always reported separately from owned. PT7.3.3
Formal Indigenous relationship#: The signed instrument behind "linked" status: a partnership, revenue-sharing, or equivalent agreement with a Nation or Indigenous business that creates defined economic rights — not goodwill, sponsorship, or intent. NDS §3
Tier / Tier 1#: Position in the supply chain relative to the reporting entity: Tier 1 suppliers are paid directly by the entity; Tier 2 are paid by Tier 1; and so on. Topic PT7 measures Tier 1; Topic PT8 traces beyond it.
Total Direct Procurement#: The denominator: the entity's entire in-scope Tier 1 spend for the period — not merely the spend it classified. Materiality thresholds limit classification effort; they never shrink the denominator. PT7.5.3.1
Unclassified remainder#: The disclosed share of Total Direct Procurement left unclassified after applying the materiality threshold — so a percentage can never quietly pretend to full coverage. PT7.5.3.1
Direct Indigenous ProcurementPM-D#: Tier 1 spend with eligible Indigenous enterprises only — owned and linked always presented separately. PT7.0.6.2(a)
Path#: The route a portion of spend travels through the supply chain — the unit of tracing in PT8. Where a contract splits among subcontractors, each split is its own path, and the legs of a path must reconcile to the whole. PT8.3.2
First-qualifying-event (FQE) attributionmarket synonym: "terminal attribution"#: The attribution rule: each path is counted once, at the first eligible Indigenous enterprise it reaches, and tracing terminates there for attribution purposes — everything downstream is flagged flow-through. What the market calls "terminal Indigenous procurement" is this rule. PT8.3.2.3
Attributed Indigenous ProcurementATT-IO / ATT-IL#: The non-duplicative multi-tier totals produced by FQE attribution — owned and linked attributed separately, Tier 1 plus first-qualifying deeper-tier events. PT8.3.3
Nested / flow-through#: Amounts appearing downstream of a path's first qualifying event — visible in the data, flagged, and never counted again in attributed totals. PT8.3.3.2
Net Indigenous ProcurementPM-DN#: Direct plus attributed indirect procurement — "net" meaning non-duplicative across tiers under FQE attribution. Unrelated to the net-of-benefit measurement in contributions. PT7.0.6.2(b)(d)
Gross Indigenous ProcurementPM-G-SUP#: Every-junction counting: spend counted at each eligible Indigenous enterprise it touches along a path. Equivalent to Indigenous Economic Circulation — deliberately duplicative, genuinely informative about supplier networks, and permitted only as a labeled supplementary measure, never a headline. PT8.3.5 / PT7.0.6.2(c)
Indigenous Economic Circulation#: The formal name of the gross, multi-count lens — always carrying its supplementary label and never added to, or substituted for, attributed totals. PT8.3.5.4
Indigenous-Linked Economic Flow#: The circulation-style supplementary measure for linked (rather than owned) enterprises — same labels, same restrictions. PT8.3.5
Procurement Methodology Declaration#: The mandatory metadata disclosure of which methodology a Statement uses: the code (PM-D, PM-DN, PM-G-SUP), coverage, counting basis and terminus, denominators, selection rationale, assumptions and limitations, and a year-over-year consistency statement. PT7.0.6
Opportunity principle#: Procurement measures the commercial opportunity extended to an eligible Indigenous enterprise — full transaction value once classified, never pro-rated by ownership percentage. A 51/49 JV's contract counts at 100%, exactly like a 100%-owned company's; how value flows behind the structure is disclosed in PT3, PT6, and PT10. PT7.0.4(c)
Materiality threshold (procurement)#: The disclosed spend threshold above which supplier classification and tracing are mandatory — a limit on effort, covering at least the required share of spend, with everything evidenced below it still countable. Clause 5.6
Pass-through / integrity alert#: An arrangement routing spend through an Indigenous business that adds no substantive value — fronting. Prohibited from classification, subject to required entity vigilance, and an integrity breach for every party involved. PT7.3.1

Equity participation

Equity participation interest#: An equity or equity-like interest — shares, partnership or trust units, defined convertibles — held by a Nation or Nation-controlled entity in the reporting entity, a project vehicle, or a material asset. Personal shareholdings by Indigenous individuals don't qualify. PT10.2.2
Equity posture disclosure#: Required of every entity, every Statement: whether criteria exist for when Nation equity participation is considered — the triggers, the decision level, financing support — or an explicit statement that none exist, plus the period's offered / requested / concluded / declined counts. PT10.3.1
Ownership bands#: The public granularity for equity interests — under 10%, 10–24.9%, 25–49.9%, 50%+ — with exact percentages disclosed only with the Nation's consent. PT10.3.2(d)
Opportunity–counterparty pairing#: The counting unit for posture counts: one defined project or transaction process, paired with one Nation or Nation collective negotiating as one. Offered to three Nations separately is three instances; concluded with a three-Nation LP is one. PT10.3.1(d)

Access, challenge & voice

Rights-scoped access#: Each attributed Nation's entitlement to the records behind claims about it — its own data, offered by publication date, free of charge; never another Community's data, never personal information. Clause 7.9.2
Challenge#: A Nation's formal dispute of a disclosure about it, with clocks the entity must meet: acknowledgement in 5 business days, substantive answer in 30 days, one extension to 60 maximum, corrections republished, retaliation prohibited, escalation to the Foundation available. Clause 7.9.7
Community testimonial (PT2)#: Leadership-only, verbatim, consent-gated Nation voice, solicited on a standardized instrument. The mandatory disclosures are the outcome counts, reported neutrally — a non-response is a count, never presented as approval, opposition, or an assessment. PT2

Data & assurance

AI & automated-processing safeguards#: AI and automated tools may assist preparation and analysis but cannot replace evidence, consent, or accountable human judgment. Community-linked data remains subject to Nation governance and consent for AI use. Synthetic identity, testimonial, and consent content is not evidence; the Framework records no Nation endorsement. Clauses 4.6.3–4.6.5
No-estimation rule#: Every disclosed figure traces to a system of record; estimation, proxies, and modelled substitutions are prohibited. If it can't be re-performed from source records, it can't carry a conformance claim. Clause 4.3.2
Pehta Disclosure Registry#: The proposed Foundation-operated, Nation-governed access function for Nation versions, delivery records, contacts and corrections. Lodging applies where operational and is separate from optional public filing with the Pehta Record. The Registry records no Nation approval, validation, rating or verdict. Clause 7.9.11
The Pehta Record#: The Foundation-held register of issued Statements. Filing places a Statement, its Management Assertion, and its metadata — statement form, Declared Coverage, delivery confirmation — into one comparable collection. Filing is optional: an entity conforms whether or not it files. Any single filed Statement is free to read, by anyone, permanently. Clause 8.10
Structured public record (proposed, later edition)#: A possible later-edition publication of defined measures to a published schema. This edition requires no machine-readable public dataset at any Statement Status. Question 35 asks about future triggers, portability and governance, and whether structured lodging could enable automatic checks that a Nation version contains only its addressed Community’s data. Q35 / BC36
Small-cell suppression#: Any disaggregated cell representing fewer than five individuals is suppressed and flagged — privacy protection built into the data layer itself. Appendix A.6
Limited / reasonable assurance#: The external assurance depths the Standard phases in: limited assurance from RY-2, reasonable assurance over the core quantitative Topics (PT3, PT4, PT7, PT8, and PT10's quantitative elements) at RY-4, under CSAE 3000/3001, ISSA 5000, or CSSA 5000 as applicable. Table 1 / Clause 8.5.2
Reporting Inventory (M / C / O)#: The consolidated register marking every disclosure Mandatory, Conditional, or Optional — with a published rationale for each status, tested against materiality to Nations and to investors at once. Appendix D

Definitions.

Claims & statuses

Roles & governance

Employment & identity

Contributions & project benefits

Procurement

Equity participation

Access, challenge & voice

Data & assurance