Provenance tier

A label recording how a figure was obtained — measured, calculated, estimated or declared — kept separate from the figure itself.

A meter reading and a hand-typed number look identical in a spreadsheet. Once they are added together, the difference is gone.

Recording provenance as its own axis keeps that difference visible: this input was metered, that one came from a supplier’s declaration, this other one is an industry average. The total can then be read with its weak points in view.

It is deliberately not a single trust score. Collapsing provenance into one number would hide exactly the detail that makes it useful, and would invite comparison between figures that were never built the same way.

Primary data Data measured at its source — your meter, your supplier's actual production — as opposed to an industry average.
Verifiable, not verified A record anyone can check for themselves is not the same as one an accredited body has audited. Both are useful; they are not interchangeable.