National Housing Federation (NHF) chief executive David Orr has warned the  Government target to make all new homes ‘zero carbon’’ by 2016 will be missed unless it makes private developers sign up to legally-binding sustainable standards.

Speaking at the NHF annual conference in Birmingham, Orr said that while 92% of new homes built by housing associations meet current minimum sustainable criteria, only 2% of privately-built new homes do. He stressed that: “Currently, private developers are not being compelled to meet minimum standards on greenhouse gas emissions at all. In fact, they are being allowed to put their profits ahead of the survival of future generations.”

It’s time that ministers legally locked private developers into the same timetable as housing associations, he insisted.

He added: “At the moment, as housing associations are the only ones using sustainable building methods, the supply chain is artificially expensive and housing associations are having to shoulder the cost. This is unfair.”

A DCLG spokeswoman said that all homes will be required to be zero carbon by 2016 and legally binding regulations on the private sector are being brought in. We also think it is important that the public sector leads the way.”