The Urgent Need for Standardized Indigenous Impact Reporting
There is currently widespread discussion online about what constitutes an Indigenous business and who qualifies as an Indigenous business. This article does not seek to address that debate. In Canada, strong organizations are already managing that issue effectively. Instead, this article focuses on the next step: once it is determined who is and who is not an Indigenous business, amongst other common Indigenous industry metrics—how does the market account for that in a standardized way? How do we drive confidence, credibility, and comparability across industries? These are the questions that need urgent attention.
In the world of ESG, risk is often framed in terms of its potential impact on share value—yet where do the metrics lie that offer insight into the level of perceived Indigenous rights risks associated with those same investments? The absence of standardized data leaves institutional investors and companies exposed to uncertainty, creating room for misinterpretation, misalignment, or outright greenwashing. While no single set of metrics can serve as a silver bullet, a structured approach can move us toward a world where Indigenous communities themselves are the arbiters of the metrics that define the quality of the relationship between industry and community. By establishing a common foundation, capital markets can gain deeper insight into Indigenous rights risks, better aligning financial incentives with meaningful, measurable Indigenous engagement.
Introduction
Indigenous impact reporting is at a crossroads. Across industries, companies proudly publish reports on how their projects and partnerships benefit Indigenous communities. Yet beneath the glossy brochures lies a disconcerting truth: there is no universally accepted standard for measuring these impacts. Each organization often invents its own method to calculate “Indigenous benefits,” making it nearly impossible to tell fact from fluff. This lack of consistency isn’t a mere technicality—it strikes at the heart of credibility. If every vendor, supplier, and contractor uses a different yardstick, how can Indigenous communities and stakeholders trust the numbers being reported? The urgency to establish a unified Indigenous impact reporting framework has never been greater. Without it, well-intentioned promises risk becoming empty statistics, and the gap between reported impacts and actual community benefits will continue to widen.
Vendors, Suppliers, and the Cost of Fragmentation
Vendors and suppliers play a pivotal role in Indigenous impact reporting, especially on large projects. They are on the front lines of delivering employment, training, and business opportunities to Indigenous peoples. However, the absence of a consistent reporting standard among these partners is undermining the very impact they claim to have. As the Pehta Foundation, an Indigenous-led initiative observes, “our communities see hundreds of different reports—some better than others, but none of them are equal or standard” (pehta.com). Each vendor or contractor often provides its own report using its own metrics and definitions. The result is a patchwork of impact claims that cannot be easily compared or aggregated.
Such fragmented approaches come at a high cost. They diminish credibility, confidence, and comparability in several ways:
Credibility: When every company measures impact differently, the legitimacy of those claims comes into question. A report that touts millions spent on Indigenous businesses means little if there’s no standard defining what counts as an Indigenous business spend or what outcomes it produced. It starts to feel like marketing rather than truth.
Confidence: Investors, partners, and community members lose confidence in the data. Inconsistent methods create doubt about whether reported benefits are real. Stakeholders may start to suspect exaggeration or “impact washing,” where the appearance of benefit is padded without genuine results. This eroded trust can lead to hesitation in forming future partnerships or investing in Indigenous initiatives.
Comparability: Perhaps most glaringly, without a common framework, there is no apples-to-apples way to compare outcomes. One supplier might count the number of Indigenous employees hired, another the dollars spent on Indigenous subcontractors, and yet another the number of community meetings held. The lack of alignment means no clear benchmark to judge what approaches truly deliver for communities. It becomes impossible to tell which projects or companies are doing well and which are falling short, because each is essentially grading itself on a different scale.
Ultimately, these fragmented reporting practices create distance between reported impacts and actual community benefits. A company might report that it “supported 50 Indigenous jobs” through various suppliers, but how do those jobs translate into community well-being if we don’t know their duration, quality, or pay level? Another firm might claim “$5 million in Indigenous procurement,” yet without standard definitions this could include everything from genuine community-owned enterprise contracts to simply buying office supplies from a large distributor that happens to have an Indigenous shareholder. In the end, the community may see very little change on the ground, as the glossy numbers fail to correspond to tangible improvements in living conditions, employment, or income. The impact, as reported, drifts further and further from the impact as lived.
The lasting consequences for Indigenous communities are real. When impact reports lack credibility and clarity, it hampers the ability of communities to hold industry partners accountable for their promises. It also means missed opportunities: meaningful data could be used to identify what initiatives work best and should be scaled up, but instead, communities are left sorting through disjointed information. As a result, positive outcomes that could have been achieved – like targeted training programs or long-term employment pipelines – might never materialize, buried under a heap of inconsistent reports. It’s a disservice to the very communities these initiatives are meant to uplift.
CEOs: No Room for Ego in Indigenous Impact Reporting
A critical part of the solution lies in how company leadership, particularly CEOs, approach Indigenous impact reporting. The reality is that the commitment to credible, standardized reporting must start at the top. CEOs need to move away from ad-hoc, ego-driven approaches to tracking Indigenous engagement and toward methods rooted in compliance, consistency, and transparency. Too often, well-meaning executives allow their organizations to develop custom reporting models that serve internal optics rather than external accountability. These proprietary systems may be shaped by passion and good intentions, but when they become internal pet projects, they often reinforce silos and resist broader alignment with industry standards.
It’s time for CEOs to face a hard truth: Indigenous impact reporting is not a marketing exercise. It’s not an opportunity for companies to define success on their own terms with whatever metrics tell the best story. Rather, it must adhere to rigorous, standardized methodologies to be effective. Moving past ego-driven approaches means prioritizing accountability over accolades. CEOs should ask themselves: Are we reporting in a way that any outside observer—most importantly Indigenous communities—can understand and trust? If the answer is no, then no amount of branding, custom metrics, or carefully curated narratives can justify sticking with an internal system.
Standardized reporting methods, ideally aligned with an emerging industry-wide framework, enforce a level of compliance, consistency, and transparency that no company-defined system can match. Compliance means following agreed-upon guidelines for what to report and how—similar to how financial officers adhere to GAAP or IFRS. Consistency ensures that key metrics—such as “Indigenous employment”—are uniformly defined across projects, making comparisons meaningful. Transparency means reporting methods and data must be open to scrutiny, with assumptions clearly stated, calculations verifiable, and results subject to independent validation or community review.
Adopting a standardized approach isn’t just about ticking boxes—it’s about demonstrating integrity. A common framework allows companies to prove their Indigenous impact with credibility, rather than relying on unverifiable claims or feel-good narratives. CEOs set the tone for whether their organizations embrace real accountability or continue with surface-level, self-referential reporting. It may feel like relinquishing control over the messaging, but in reality, it strengthens something far more valuable: trust. In the long run, a company’s credibility will rest not on how unique its internal reporting system is, but on whether its reported impacts are rigorous, comparable, and verifiable. There is simply no room for ego when the stakes are this high.
The Problem of Impact Stacking
Among the many issues plaguing current Indigenous impact reporting practices, impact stacking stands out as a particularly thorny problem. Impact stacking refers to the tendency of multiple parties to claim credit for the same outcome, thereby “stacking” the impact in overlapping layers. In a fragmented reporting environment, this happens frequently. For example, imagine a major infrastructure project where a prime contractor, a subcontractor, and a funding agency all collaborate to train and hire a group of Indigenous workers. Without clear guidelines, each entity might report that they have “created 10 Indigenous jobs”. In reality, it’s the same 10 jobs being counted three times. The impact has been stacked.
This double- (or triple-) counting inflates the perceived benefits and misleads stakeholders. Companies may not even do this maliciously; it can occur simply because there’s no standard on attribution of outcomes. But regardless of intent, the effect is a distorted picture of what was actually achieved for the community. When totals are summed up, one might erroneously celebrate “30 jobs created” when the community only saw 10 jobs materialize. The disconnect between reported numbers and real-world benefits grows, and with it grows skepticism from informed community members.
Impact stacking is just one key factor among several that contribute to unreliable Indigenous impact reports. Other issues include:
Inconsistent Scope: Different reports may draw the boundaries differently on what counts as an Indigenous impact. One might include impacts on all Indigenous peoples (employees, contractors, community members) broadly, while another only counts impacts on a specific First Nation or group. Without alignment, one report’s “impact” could be another’s background noise.
Selective Reporting: In the absence of standards, some organizations may cherry-pick only favorable indicators to report. They might highlight the number of scholarships given out while ignoring the fact that overall Indigenous employment in their project declined. This selective approach paints an incomplete picture.
Lack of Verification: With proprietary systems, it’s often unclear if anyone outside the company has verified the data. Did an Indigenous community representative or third-party auditor confirm those job numbers or contract values? Often, the answer is no, because no common verification protocol exists.
All these factors – impact stacking included – point to the same fundamental problem: without a unified framework, there are no rules of the game. It’s a free-for-all, and that means even the best-intentioned efforts can result in confusion and overstatement. The broader conversation about Indigenous impact reporting must address these pitfalls head-on. We need to develop clear guidance on how to attribute impact to avoid stacking, standardized definitions to prevent inconsistent scope, and requirements for external validation to ensure truthfulness. Each of these improvements hinges on one thing: collective agreement on a single framework or standard. As long as dozens of different approaches persist, issues like impact stacking will continue to plague the credibility of Indigenous impact claims.
Indigenous Communities as Active Partners in Defining Metrics
In the push for standardization, one concern often raised is whether a unified framework would ignore the unique priorities of individual First Nations or Indigenous communities. The truth is, any First Nation or Indigenous community still has an active role in shaping and defining these metrics today, and they absolutely must be at the center of this process. Standardization does not mean imposing top-down metrics that don’t reflect on-the-ground realities. On the contrary, it means creating a common language of impact that emerges from consensus and collaboration with Indigenous communities.
Indigenous peoples are not mere subjects of impact reporting; they are rights-holders and key stakeholders. Their perspectives on what counts as a meaningful benefit should drive the design of any reporting standard. For example, many communities might say that the quality of jobs (in terms of wages and longevity) matters more than the quantity of short-term positions. Others might prioritize measures of knowledge transfer, cultural preservation, or community well-being beyond just dollars and jobs. These priorities can and should be woven into the fabric of a standardized framework. In fact, some Indigenous organizations are already taking the lead: the Pehta initiative, for instance, has a “Pehta Standards Board” and framework that seeks to ensure data is reported in ways aligned with what First Nations expect (pehta.org). This is a prime example of communities actively defining the metrics on their terms, and inviting industry to align.
It’s important to state clearly: unifying the reporting approach will not sideline Indigenous voices – it will amplify them. If done correctly, the standard metrics will be those that Indigenous communities themselves have identified as most crucial. Through Pehta, each First Nation or Indigenous group has, today, the opportunity to influence emerging standards by voicing what success looks like for them. Many are already engaged in these discussions, whether through formal consultations, partnerships in developing reporting tools, or forums on economic reconciliation. And this work must continue. The development of a unified Indigenous impact framework should be a participatory process, where Indigenous leaders, elders, youth, and experts are co-creators.
Moreover, even after a standard is adopted, Indigenous communities will have a role in interpreting and validating the results. Data alone means little without context. Communities can provide that context, ensuring that the numbers in reports correspond to lived experience. For instance, a standardized report might show that 30% of project contracts went to Indigenous businesses. It will be up to the community to confirm whether those businesses truly benefited the community (perhaps they are local, community-owned firms) or if they were distant entities with little local presence. In this way, communities remain the ultimate arbiters of whether an “impact” is meaningful. A unified framework simply gives them a clearer mirror to see what is happening and a stronger voice to demand improvements.
In summary, Indigenous communities today have agency and an active role in shaping the metrics that will define tomorrow’s reporting standards. Embracing a unified framework is not about diminishing that agency; it’s about leveraging it to ensure the framework serves Indigenous peoples’ interests first and foremost. Any credible standard will require the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous communities in its design – the same principle that governs any project on their lands should govern the metrics by which we measure a project’s success.
A Lesson from Standardization: Prosperity Through Unity
If anyone doubts that standardization can lead to real prosperity, we need only look at historical and industry examples where alignment around a common framework changed the game. When stakeholders agree on a unified approach to measuring and reporting, it builds trust – and trust in turn fuels investment and growth. Consider the world of corporate finance: before the advent of standardized accounting principles, companies could (and did) keep books in very different ways, resulting in confusion and mistrust among investors. The adoption of common standards like Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) created transparency and comparability. The result was a significant rise in investor confidence and cross-border investment. In fact, studies have shown that IFRS adoption “considerably increases the level of transparency and... enables the inflow of FDI as well, therefore ensuring economic growth.” (mdpi.com) Enhanced transparency led to greater investor confidence and foreign direct investment – a clear case where standardization underpinned prosperity by making information reliable.
Closer to the Indigenous context, we have a powerful example of what can happen when a standardized framework is embraced. The First Nations Fiscal Management Act (FNFMA) in Canada enabled the creation of institutions like the First Nations Finance Authority (FNFA), which allow First Nations to operate under a unified financial governance and borrowing framework. Instead of each community navigating finances and loans on its own (with varying policies and credibility), those who opt in follow a common set of rules and certifications for financial management. The outcome has been nothing short of remarkable. As of this year, FNFA’s pooled approach has unlocked over $3 billion in financing for its member First Nations, creating an estimated 32,000 jobs and generating $6.5 billion in economic output (fnfa.ca). This was possible because investors and markets trust the standardized processes and transparency that member First Nations adhere to. By aligning around a single framework for financial reporting and accountability, dozens of communities have accessed affordable capital that was once out of reach, directly translating into new housing, infrastructure, businesses, and employment for their people. This is true prosperity in action, born from unity and standards.
The FNFA example provides a blueprint for Indigenous impact reporting. Just as a common financial framework built credibility with investors, a common impact reporting framework would build credibility with all stakeholders involved in Indigenous economic development – from government agencies and private investors to the communities themselves who deserve to know exactly how projects are benefiting them. It shows that standardization is not about bureaucracy for its own sake; it is about creating the conditions for success at scale. When everyone’s data is speaking the same language, opportunities multiply. Governments can more easily identify which initiatives should receive support or funding. Communities can more readily point to comparative data when negotiating benefits agreements, knowing they are backed by an objective standard. Companies, for their part, can distinguish themselves not by the glossiness of their claims but by the proven impact they deliver under a respected framework.
We can also draw a parallel to the realm of sustainability and ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) reporting. Initially a wild west of various metrics, it has been moving towards standard guidelines (like the Global Reporting Initiative and new IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards) to meet investor demands. Even so, analysts have pointed out that “ESG metrics lack clear standards or requirements pertaining to Indigenous communities” (delve.mcgill.ca) – a gap that underscores exactly why a dedicated Indigenous impact standard is needed. But the trajectory in ESG reporting is instructive: the more alignment around standards, the more those reports are taken seriously by markets and the public.
The lesson is clear: alignment around a standardized framework leads to tangible benefits. It has done so in finance, in quality assurance, in safety protocols, and in sustainability reporting. There is every reason to believe Indigenous impact reporting can follow the same path to enhanced credibility and, ultimately, to economic and social prosperity for Indigenous peoples.
Conclusion: Toward a Unified Indigenous Impact Framework
The call for a unified Indigenous impact reporting framework is not about adding another layer of red tape – it’s about ensuring real results for Indigenous communities. The current fragmented, inconsistent approaches are failing to deliver the transparency and accountability that Indigenous peoples rightfully expect. Without change, we risk undermining reconciliation efforts by continuing to allow feel-good figures to mask mediocre outcomes. The credibility of every dollar spent and every job created is on the line. As long as impact reports remain a scattershot of proprietary methods and ego-driven metrics, skepticism will grow and the true potential of Indigenous economic empowerment will remain unrealized.
On the other hand, if we embrace standardization now, we set in motion a virtuous cycle. Consistency builds credibility; credibility builds trust; trust attracts investment and partnership; and investment drives community benefit. It’s a cycle that can redefine the economic landscape for Indigenous peoples and their partners. But it all starts with that first step of agreeing to measure and report in the same way. The vendors and suppliers who operate on Indigenous lands must commit to this, recognizing that the long-term confidence of their Indigenous partners and clients depends on it. Indigenous liaisons and industry leaders must lead the charge internally, shedding the “not-invented-here” syndrome and opting into systems that are bigger than any one company – systems that serve the greater good.
We should not wait for a crisis of trust to force our hand. The urgency is now. Indigenous communities are ready and willing to engage – they have been asking, for years, for clearer reporting that aligns with their needs (pehta.org). Institutional investors and governments, too, are signaling that standardized Indigenous reporting is a criterion for continued support (pehta.com). The stars are aligning for a major shift, and it is incumbent upon all of us in industry, government, and community to seize this moment.
In practical terms, moving forward means aligning with Pehta or incorporating the Pehta Framework to develop Indigenous impact reporting standards with strong Indigenous representation and leadership. This involves supporting Pehta that is deeply rooted in First Nations communities, ensuring that metrics reflect community priorities while respecting treaty and constitutionally protected rights. With this approach, an Indigenous community in Alberta can assess the impact of a pipeline project using the same criteria as a mining project in Ontario, ensuring consistency and transparency in decision-making.
Standardization does not mean one-size-fits-all outcomes – every project and community will have different results. But it does mean one-size-fits-all measurement. And that is a reasonable, indeed essential, expectation in 2025 and beyond. We have standardized measures for economic growth, for environmental emissions, for safety incidents – why should Indigenous community benefits be any less important or any more nebulous? They shouldn’t be. Indigenous impact reporting needs to grow up and adopt the same level of rigor.
In conclusion, the path forward is clear: we must all commit to a unified Indigenous impact reporting framework that upholds consistency, transparency, and fairness. By doing so, we honor the trust that Indigenous communities place in development partnerships. We also ensure that every promise made is tracked and kept, and that we can confidently say, years down the line, that these projects and partnerships truly contributed to Indigenous prosperity. The time for disparate, artful tales is over; the time for a single, truthful story that we can all stand behind is now. It’s about less confusion, more progress (pehta.com) – and that is a vision of reconciliation in practice that we should all strive for.
