A quarter of homebuilders are planning to go back to timber frame windows, although the majority are still using uPVC.
These are the findings of a timber-frame industry survey of the top 100 private homebuilders.

Housing association Peabody Trust has already announced that it is abandoning uPVC in favour of timber on grounds of sustainability. "uPVC is difficult to recycle and the situation regarding maintaining uPVC features is unclear, leaving serious implications for our maintenance budget," said Dickon Robinson, Peabody's director of development and technical services.

Greenpeace has launched a database of what it claims are environmentally friendly alternatives to window frames and other building materials that might contain PVC.

A spokesman for The European Council of Vinyl Manufacturers said: "Greenpeace is promoting a misleading message with this database. The limited information in it has no value for specifiers because it offers guidance that is neither commercially realistic nor practical."