Consulting specialist advisors

What the standard means by consultation

• With consultation is defined precisely: engaging in consultation with specialist advisors in relation to the innovative, sustainable and ethical aspects of the business activity.
• Three parts, and all three are gates:
  • it must be specialist advisors — people with relevant expertise, from outside the team
  • it must be engagement, meaning a two-way exchange, not a request for information
  • it must be about the innovative, sustainable and ethical aspects, not only about logistics
• Consultation is one of the three things the grade is decided on, and thorough consultation is what Excellence requires.

Who counts as a specialist advisor

• Match the advisor to the aspect:
  • Innovation — someone who has commercialised something: a local business owner, a product developer, a food technologist, an industry association, a business mentor, a regional economic development advisor.
  • Environmental sustainability — a council waste or sustainability officer, an environmental consultant, a supplier of recycled or compostable materials, a community environmental organisation.
  • Social sustainability — a community organisation working with the group you intend to benefit, a social enterprise operator, a local council community advisor.
  • Cultural sustainability and ethics — kaumātua, a local marae committee, an iwi or hapū representative, or a Māori business advisor, where the activity uses te reo, tikanga, imagery, place names or knowledge. Ask first, and ask the right people. Using cultural elements without consultation is precisely the failure this part of the standard exists to prevent.
  • Practical compliance — an environmental health officer for food safety, a health and safety advisor, an accountant for the finances, an insurance broker.
• Not specialist advisors for this purpose: your teacher, your classmates, your family, or a general internet search. They may all be useful; they do not satisfy the requirement.

How to consult well

• Approach early, while the plan can still change. An advisor consulted after the decisions are made can only approve or disapprove, and there is nothing in that for the evaluation.
• Send the plan in advance, so the meeting is spent on judgement rather than explanation.
• Prepare specific questions. "What do you think?" gets you a polite answer. Good questions look like:
  • "We are claiming this is innovative because X. In your experience, is that genuinely different from what is already out there?"
  • "We plan to divert produce from a grower's waste stream. What food safety requirements does that create that we may not have thought of?"
  • "We want to use a Māori name for the product. Is that appropriate, and if so, who should we be asking?"
  • "Our environmental measure is kilograms of waste diverted. Is that the right measure, or is there a better one?"
• Record it properly. Date, who you met, their role and expertise, what you asked, what they said, and — the important part — what you changed as a result.
• Consult more than once. Thorough consultation is a relationship over the life of the activity: once at planning, once during, and once at evaluation to test your conclusions.

Evidencing consultation

• Keep a consultation log. Each entry:

Date	Advisor and expertise	Aspect	What we asked	What they said	What we changed
14 Mar	Council waste minimisation officer	Environmental	Whether kg diverted is the right measure	Suggested also recording packaging weight per unit, since that is where most student activities lose their gains	Added packaging weight per unit as a second environmental measure

• (Invented activity, illustrative entry.)
• The "what we changed" column is the one that earns the grade. Consultation that changed nothing looks like consultation that did not happen — and if an advisor genuinely confirmed your approach, record that as the outcome and say why you accepted it.