Three cases, with their sources
How it was done elsewhere
Chile is not the first country to face this, and that is worth saying before anything else. Australia has run an Indigenous procurement policy for a decade, Canada has had an Indigenous owned and controlled bank since 1996, and the mining companies operating in northern Chile apply procurement programmes in other jurisdictions that are only beginning here. These three cases are not offered as models to copy. They are offered because they allow comparison, and because one lesson repeats in all of them: the economic autonomy of Indigenous Peoples did not advance through declarations, it advanced once there was infrastructure able to sustain it.
One point three per cent
The same company, the same policy, three countries. In Chile it buys from Indigenous businesses five times less, in proportion, than in Australia.
It is worth starting with a figure the company itself publishes, one that explains why this is not a community relations matter: more than 90% of BHP's operations sit on or near the traditional lands of Indigenous peoples. It is not a portion of the business. It is the business.
In its 2025 financial year the company reported direct global spend with Indigenous businesses of US$853 million, 40% above the previous year, across 318 vendors. The country breakdown matters, but it matters even more when read against what the company spends on suppliers in each country.
| Country | Supplier spend (US$ million) | With Indigenous businesses (US$ million) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | 2,500 | 323 | 12.9% |
| Australia | 7,300 | 505 | 6.9% |
| Chile | 1,800 | 24 | 1.3% |
It is worth noting that this is not a declaratory commitment. Spend with Indigenous suppliers forms part of the scorecard that determines senior management's variable remuneration: the target for the year was US$356 million and the outcome, in the report's own words, significantly exceeded what was required to reach the maximum. At that company, buying from an Indigenous business does not depend on the sensibility of whoever signs the order. It is budgeted and it is remunerated.
One may then ask what accounts for the difference, given the same company with the same scorecard in all three countries. In our view it is neither will nor budget, and the report itself leaves the clue in a footnote: the definitions of Indigenous business the company applies vary by operating location. In Australia and Canada it can rely on institutions that verify against a standard. In Chile, until recently, there was nothing to rely on. A procurement team that cannot accredit a supplier does not put it in its report, and a supplier that does not enter the report does not receive the purchase order. The barrier was not ideological. It was infrastructural.
The contrast within the same report completes the picture. What the company reports in Chile regarding Indigenous peoples are free, prior and informed consent processes at Escondida and Cerro Colorado, agreements with six communities, and a school and university scholarship programme. All of that matters, and none of those instruments is procurement. In Australia, by contrast, the Western Australia iron ore operation alone reports spend above A$500 million, of which more than A$300 million went to 67 Traditional Owner businesses.
What Chile takes from this
The demand already exists, it is budgeted, and it is tied to the pay of whoever decides. What was missing on this side was verifiable supply, and that is precisely the gap the Registry, the Directory and the Seal exist to close.
BHP, Annual Report 2025, year ended 30 June 2025. Indigenous spend by country appears in the Indigenous procurement section; total supplier spend, in the economic contribution by country table; the target and outcome, in the remuneration section.
Australia: a procurement policy, and a register that makes it work
The Australian state sets mandatory targets. Supply Nation solves the problem those targets create.
Since 2015 the Australian state has run the Indigenous Procurement Policy, whose stated purpose is to stimulate Indigenous entrepreneurship, business and economic development. The policy sets two simultaneous targets for public bodies: that at least 3% of the number of eligible contracts and 2.25% of their total value go to Indigenous businesses.
The results reported by the National Indigenous Australians Agency, between 2015 and February 2026, exceed A$13.5 billion in contracting opportunities, through more than 86,000 contracts awarded to more than 4,700 Indigenous businesses. Those figures should be read as floors rather than exact totals: the agency publishes them preceded by "more than". Added to this is a rule with no equivalent in Chile: contracts wholly delivered in Australia worth A$7.5 million or more, across nineteen specified industry categories, are subject to mandatory minimum Indigenous participation requirements.
A target policy, however, immediately raises a practical problem: someone has to be able to say who is an Indigenous business, and to do so in a way that survives an audit. That is Supply Nation's role. Founded in 2009, it maintains the national register buyers consult. Its standard distinguishes two states, and the distinction is instructive.
- Registered
- The Registered category requires 50% or more Indigenous ownership. The organisation itself explains that this threshold exists to accommodate equal partnerships with non Indigenous owners.
- Certified
- The Certified category requires 51% or more Indigenous ownership, management and control, with Indigenous people involved in the day to day running of the business.
What Chile takes from this
Two things, and they are worth separating. The first is the architecture: the procurement policy and the register that verifies it are distinct pieces, and the policy does not work without the register. The second is the standard, where comparison demands precision. The Indigenous Business Seal requires 50% of capital plus management and control, that is, the ownership threshold of the Australian Registered category combined with the requirements of the Certified one. The difference from 51% is not one of rigour but of corporate arithmetic: 51% secures an absolute majority in any vote, 50% allows a tie. It is a minor difference, but worth keeping in mind when comparing registers across countries, because they are not measuring quite the same thing.
National Indigenous Australians Agency, Indigenous Procurement Policy, cumulative figures to February 2026. Supply Nation, registration and certification criteria.
Canada: autonomy through finance
First Nations Bank of Canada was not born Indigenous. It became Indigenous, and that is the interesting part.
First Nations Bank of Canada received its banking charter in November 1996. It was not an Indigenous foundation in the strict sense: it began as an alliance between the Saskatchewan Indian Equity Foundation, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and TD Bank, that is, with a non Indigenous commercial bank as a partner. The institution itself describes its origin as an important step toward Indigenous economic self sufficiency.
What makes the case interesting is not the starting point but the trajectory. Effective 1 November 2009 the bank became, in its own words, over 80% owned and controlled by Indigenous shareholders from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Quebec. It operates nine full service branches today and a network of community banking centres, several of them on reserve.
In our view there are two lessons here, and the second matters more than the first. The first is that control can be built in stages. An initial alliance with a non Indigenous actor is not a surrender if the agreement contemplates the progressive transfer of ownership from the outset. It is, strictly speaking, the financial application of an idea this ecosystem holds elsewhere: take the best of what already works in order to strengthen what is ours, without ending up dependent on it.
The second is that corporate procurement is not the only path to economic autonomy, and probably not the deepest one. A business that sells to a large company depends on that company continuing to buy. A community that controls its own financial institution decides who it lends to. This ecosystem works on the first path today because it is the one that can be sustained with verifiable infrastructure in the short term, but it would be a mistake to confuse the stretch with the destination.
What Chile takes from this
That the agenda does not end at procurement. Access to credit and capital is the next stretch, and in Chile today it has no institution behind it.
First Nations Bank of Canada, own institutional information.