A joint report from leading construction and environment bodies calls for a code of practice to improve the quality of developments such as the Thames Gateway.

London sustainable construction project: a scoping study is jointly published by CIRIA, Forum for the Future, Foundation for the Built Environment and the London Sustainability Exchange.

The report argues that without a code it will be difficult to achieve the social and environmental objectives set out in the Mayor’s London Plan. The organisations involved envisage a voluntary code, with a clear set of performance targets and best practice guidance. This would cover all stages of a building’s life from design and implementation to demolition and rebuilding. The project brings together over 200 initiatives, standards and policies which could inform the code.

Peter Head of Arup, head of the London Sustainable Development Commission and chairman of the project, says: “This project has moved the sustainability agenda forward so that sustainability can now be seen as a practical way of implementing good design across the whole of the built environment.

“There is a real opportunity to pioneer this approach in the Thames Gateway, and to feed what we have learned into the ODPM’s development of a national buildings code.”

Source

Building Sustainable Design