Risks and Opportunities

NEA’s Enterprise Risk Management Programme

Recognising the importance of effective risk management in enhancing corporate governance and strategic planning, NEA established an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) programme to manage risks and opportunities in a structured, integrated and effective manner. The ERM programme enables NEA to proactively identify, assess, prioritise, treat and monitor our key strategic and operational risks on an ongoing basis. The programme enhances:

Risk Awareness, by providing an integrated view of the combined impact of different risks on the organisation, thereby eliminating silo thinking in risk management
Risk Ownership, by providing a formalised structure to assign accountability for key risks, mitigating measures and treatment plans
Proactive Risk Management, by providing a structured and robust management process to minimise upstream risks, based on both top-down and bottom-up risk reviews

NEA takes a precautionary approach to managing our risks and closely monitors them, as well as identifies new risks and opportunities. This is to ensure that NEA’s corporate sustainability efforts address all developing trends and risks.

Enterprise Risk Management Framework

In planning ERM activities, NEA is guided by an ERM framework that features three thrusts:

Robust Risk Management Governance Structure

The Enterprise Risk and Safety Steering Committee (ERSSC) is responsible for overseeing risk management in NEA, and is chaired by NEA’s Deputy CEO (Planning, Corporate and Technology) in his capacity as NEA’s Chief Risk Officer.

The ERSSC meets every quarter to review key strategic and operational risks facing NEA and to ensure that pertinent risks are prioritised and adequately addressed. The ERSSC also reviews the effectiveness of these risk treatment plans, as well as studies trends and emerging issues that may impact the risks confronting NEA.

At the NEA Management Meeting, ERSSC reports key risk management issues and recommendations to the CEO. ERSSC also reports to the Audit Committee and NEA Board on the ERM programme, ERM initiatives and key strategic risks which NEA faces. ERSSC then obtains the Board’s guidance on any further development of the ERM programme.

Risk Owners are assigned the task of identifying, assessing, and monitoring key strategic and operational risks, and treatment plans to mitigate those risks. As part of the risk management process, environmental scans are conducted on material issues that may impact the achievement of strategic objectives in the Strategy Map. Meanwhile, Process Owners provide risk content (root causes, consequences and controls), and implement and monitor the risk treatment plans.

Strong Risk Management Capabilities and Tools

The risk map provides ERSSC an overview of the top priority risks faced by NEA. This will allow the committee to monitor the effectiveness of risk treatment plans.

Departments with operational functions also conduct Quality Assurance Self-assessments. Introduced in August 2016, these regular control self-assessments help departments determine the effectiveness of their internal controls and risk mitigation.

Proactive Risk Management Culture

To strengthen our risk culture, NEA conducts numerous training sessions and customised briefings each year. They include:

Risk Training Workshops
Conducted as part of the Leaders in Environmental Action Planning course for middle management staff, and the NEA Executive Training course for all executive-grade staff, these workshops create greater awareness and understanding of risk management, its importance to NEA’s roles and functions, and how staff can play their part in instilling risk management practices in their areas of work.

Recognition of Risk Champions’ Contributions
Risk Champions from their respective departments are nominated by their respective Division or Department Head. They are given due recognition for their contributions, which are documented in their staff appraisal.

NEA Enterprise Risk Management Framework

Risk Materiality Assessment

The materiality assessment is part of our Enterprise Risk Management framework in the identification and assessment of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) risks and opportunities. The ESG risks, challenges and opportunities for each of the material issues are summarised here.

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