A disclosure standard for Indigenous community benefit and impact

The Pehta Framework is an Indigenous-led disclosure standard designed to bring credibility, comparability, and confidence to how Indigenous community benefits are reported across projects, proponents, and supply chains.

It exists to address a persistent gap: while Indigenous impacts are widely discussed, they are rarely disclosed in a way that is consistent, decision-useful, or governed by Indigenous rights-holders themselves.

The Framework establishes a common structure for how Indigenous employment, procurement, training, and related outcomes are defined, measured, and disclosed—without reducing those outcomes to a single score or rating.

What the Framework Is

The Pehta Framework is a normative disclosure standard.
It defines what must be disclosed, how it must be structured, and what conditions are required for disclosure to be credible.

It is designed to operate across sectors and project types, and to support aggregation over time rather than one-off reporting.

The Framework is supported by two core instruments:

The Normative Disclosure Standard (NDS), which sets authoritative disclosure requirements.

The Implementation and Guidance Manual (IGM), which provides practical guidance on applying those requirements consistently, without modifying or softening them.

What the Framework Is Not

The Pehta Framework is not an ESG rating, a certification scheme, or a voluntary code of conduct.

It does not score or rank communities, companies, or projects.

It does not replace Indigenous rights, agreements, or consultation processes.

Instead, it provides the disclosure infrastructure needed for those processes to be informed by credible, comparable data.

Why Standardization Matters

Without standardization, Indigenous impact reporting becomes fragmented, non-comparable, and difficult to trust.

Each project invents its own definitions. Each proponent reports differently. Each community receives data in incompatible formats.

The Pehta Framework resolves this by establishing a shared disclosure language—allowing outcomes to be compared across projects and accumulated over time, while still respecting local context and governance.