Olympic village will fail to hit government’s carbon target

None of the flats and houses in the Stratford City development in east London, which includes the Olympic village, will meet the government’s proposed upper standards for sustainable homes.

Developer Westfield’s masterplan and environmental strategies, which were delivered to the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) last week, make it clear that the project will fall short of the government’s carbon reduction targets within six months of its completion.

The news comes a week after a construction industry summit, at which housing minister Yvette Cooper called for a “revolution” in zero carbon development.

As the table shows, the present designs for Stratford City will meet the 25% reduction standard in 2012, when the Games are held, but within months will fall nearly 20% behind.

By the zero carbon deadline of 2016, which was announced in December, the homes will have cut carbon by 50%.

Westfield had previously pledged to unveil stringent environmental targets in the strategy in order to counter criticism of its low renewable energy target on the development.

A spokesperson for Westfield said: “We are building to current Part L standards and to what the planning application requires.”

Private schemes are not obliged to meet the carbon reduction targets. However, Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, has said that greater public funding for the Olympic village needs to be secured. If this is the case, and if the Code for Sustainable Homes is introduced, Stratford City may have to meet its requirements.

The green credentials of the Games were placed in further doubt this week after London assembly members wrote to the ODA to criticise its sustainability performance.

The letter, sent by Green party representative Darren Johnson, highlighted problems with the athletes’ village and Zaha Hadid’s design for the aquatics centre.

It said: “The contract on the athletes’ village requires 2% of energy to be locally sourced renewable energy, as opposed to the energy self-sufficiency that was set out in the bid document."