Available as hard copy and download at www.utc.com/responsibility/index.htm
The centrepiece of United Technology Corporation’s stand at last
month’s Business for Social Responsibility annual conference in New
York was this, its second CSR report – so the group is clearly proud of
what it has produced. The report is, indeed, worthy of praise in some
areas, but it’s a curate’s egg of a document, and the hope must be that
UTC’s third effort, due in early Spring, shows improvement.
UTC is the 20th largest manufacturing group in the US, had a $43billion
(£22bn) turnover in 2005, and owns companies such as Pratt &
Whitney, Sikorsky and Otis, making aircraft engines, lifts and air
conditioning units. So its social and environmental impacts are pretty
large. But you wouldn’t get much sense of that from this 40-page
report, which gives most issues a light brush over, with a sprinkling
of relevant but largely unrevealing facts and figures.
There are good parts. The strengths are the sections on the environment
and community. There are also punchy case studies on some of the
group’s beneficial technological innovations, and, unusually, the chief
executive’s statement is most informative, providing more facts than
you’ll find in much of the rest of the report. There is also a
relatively innovative section on the lobbying positions of the group.
But the important bits are often left out. The information on lobbying
is woefully short on detail, with no assessment of how, and if, the
group’s positions are consistent with its CSR programmes. The report
says UTC is having difficulty eliminating ‘materials of concern’ from
its products, yet fails to say what the materials are, or why this is
proving difficult. And it states that UTC provides employees with ‘fair
compensation’, but gives no evidence of this in any shape or form.
Sadly, in the field of non-financial reporting UTC is not alone in
committing such sins of omission, which reduce credibility all round.
Peter Mason
