<p>If the government wants developers to improve new homes’ sustainability standards it must improve the planning and regulatory system to boost land supply. This is the deal HBF executive chairman Stewart Baseley put to housing minister Yvette Cooper when the pair recently visited a number of sustainable developments across Europe on a fact-finding tour arranged by the Department for Communities and Local Government. Joined by John Callcutt of English Partnerships, Paul King of the WWF’s one million sustainable homes campaign and DCLG officials, the group visited developments in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Malmo and Copenhagen. </p> <p>Cooper has subsequently called for homes to beat Scandanavian eco standards and announced plans to link energy performance certificates, which will need to be provided in home information packs from June 1 2007, to green mortgages and other incentives. Baseley said: “Although the schemes we visited are well ahead of the UK in terms of energy efficiency, the design concepts were not rocket science – we saw nothing that isn’t capable of being made available in the UK. But sustainable development needs a co-ordinated approach; it is not something housebuilders can deliver in isolation. Solutions need to embrace housebuilders and developers, materials suppliers, energy providers and …