“The National Research Foundation (NRF) commits to a clean, safe, and healthy environment for the benefit of the employees, contractors, service providers, and other stakeholders. The NRF commits to meeting workplace safety, health, and environmentally regulated issues”
- Establish, implement, resource and manage systems that address workplace safety, occupational health, and environmental issues to minimise risk, pollution, and environmental degradation (including incident investigations and reports):
- Support compliance with all applicable SHE legislation and other requirements and, in the absence of principles, set standards to meet the objectives of this policy:
- Set and renew environmental objectives and targets aimed at improving land, air and water quality through continuous sound environmental management:
- Provide empires it she means to protect themselves against the issues associated with occupational health and safety arising from the NRF operations;
- Prevent pollution resulting from NRF activities, products and services, and support pollution prevention by our customers and suppliers
- Provide awareness, training, and education at all levels of the NRF to ensure competence in handling occupational health, safety, and environmental issues;
- Contribute towards sustainable development through cost-effective use of energy and resources throughout the NRF; and
- Continuously seek opportunities to communicate, review, and reinforce this policy throughout the NRF, including periodically reporting progress to stakeholders.
The NRF requires all business units including projects and National Facilities, to:
- Implement this policy or set a sub-policy addressing specific operational requirements, including specialist risks:
- Develop and maintain procedures that address the safety, health and environmental risks of their operations;
- Assess and manage safety, health and environmental risks in a manner that minimises these risks and meets all the legal requirements;
- Maintain and regularly test emergency action plans for high-risk scenarios, fire precautions and evacuation procedures, first aid and safety protocols:
- Delegate to their line management the mitigation of safety, health and environmental risks, including implementing corrective action plans that mitigate any identified risks not addressed in the business units’ procedures;
- Train, certify and register employees and contractors up to a necessary level with respect to safety, health and the environment;
- Take into account health and safety matters when planning new methods, processes or premises;
- Maintain records of safety, health, and environmental incidents in meeting the statutory record-keeping requirements (workplace incidents including, accidents); and
- Audit its performance against its procedures and report the outcomes to the Safety, Health, Environment, and Risk (SHER) Manager as required.
The Safety, Health, Environment, and Risk (SHER) Manager aligns this policy with the NRF’s changing business needs, legislative changes, and other environmental changes on an ongoing basis.
This policy is also reviewed annually by the corporate executive, the chief executive officer, and the audit and risk committee of the NRF board.
“The National Research Foundation (NRF) is committed to the management of risk in order to achieve strategic goals and to execute on its mandate as set out in Section 3 of the National Research Foundation Act (Act 23 of 1998)”
The effective management of risk is central to the achievement of the NRF’s mandate. To this end, the NRF has established the ERM Charter which forms the foundation of its ERM programme and in turn forms an integral component of the NRF’s day-to-day operations.
The Board and Executive Management of the NRF are therefore committed to the implementation of an ERM framework that:
- Follows a holistic approach to the management of risks and opportunities;
- Complies with the recommendations of the King Report on Corporate Governance;
- Complies with the requirements of the Public Finance Management Act No 1 of 1999;
- Other regulatory requirements, standards and mandatory codes of practice.
The NRF Board is accountable for the governance of risk and to ensure that the annual| plans have properly considered and evaluated the associated risks.
The NRF Board has delegated responsibility for evaluating the progress of risk management, the effectiveness of risk management activities, the key risks facing the NRF, and the appropriate responses to address key risks to the Audit and Risk Committee.
The responsibility to design, implement and monitor the ERM Charter has been delegated to management.
In order to fulfil the objectives of this policy and lay a strong foundation for the development To fulfil the objectives of this policy and establish a solid foundation for developing an integrated risk management framework, the policy outlines the following guiding principles of Risk Management: of an integrated risk management framework, the policy outlines the following guiding principles of Risk Management:
- All business decisions will be made with the applicable information on and acceptance of the risk involved as defined in the risk appetite and tolerance statements:
- The board and executives shall periodically be made aware of the high-level risks laced by the business, will evaluate the risks and develop mitigating measures:
- All employees of the company shall be made aware of risks in their respective domains will be assisted in evaluating the risks and developing mitigation measures:
- The risk mitigation measures adopted by the NRF should be effective in the long term and be embedded in the business processes:
- Risk appetite and tolerance levels will be regularly reviewed by the Audit and Risk
Committee and decided upon depending on the strategy. - The occurrence, progress, and status of all risks will be promptly reported, and appropriate actions will be taken.
Management will monitor risk management by continuously and regularly measuring and reporting on risk management performance to the Audit and Risk Committee. They will also ensure that resources are available to assist those accountable or responsible for managing risk.
All business units are required to implement and use the common risk management framework as set out in the ERM Charter. Business units are expected to proactively anticipate and manage their risks, taking advantage of opportunities and mitigating or managing potential threats to their constantly changing risk profile.
Risk Champions within each business unit will be responsible for coordinating the risk management process for their respective unit. Risk Champions will provide risk reports and maintain the consolidated business unit-level risk registers. The NRF Manager: Safety, Health, Environment and Risk will be the overall risk management coordinator for the organisation.
The Corporate Executive, the Chief Executive Officer, and the Audit and Risk Committee of the NRF Board review this policy annually.
