A ONE-DAY conference focusing on the building of environmentally friendly homes has been held at the Festival Hall in Petersfield. The event, which was held last Monday, on United Nations World Environment Day, was organised by the Wayfarer Consortium, which includes Drum and Petersfield housing associations. The Wayfarer Consortium has already built 2,000 environmentally friendly homes and has plans for a further 2,500 to be constructed over the next two years. Many of the new homes will be built in Hampshire and West Sussex. The homes, referred to as "EcoHomes" by the Housing Corporation, conform to high standards of energy efficiency, water conservation and polluton minimisation and are well-planned in terms of transport and recycling. With around 31 per cent of energy production in Britain being consumed by domestic buildings, the consortium's campaign was welcomed by Joanne Wheeler of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in the UK, who attended the event. "WWF welcome Wayfarer's intentions and hope that private developers will follow their lead," she said. Paul Ciniglio, innovationand environmental manager for Drum Housing Association, coordinated the event. Paul believes standards must and will continue to improve. He said, "It is only by achieving the highest EcoHomes ratings that we will push the boundaries of housing design to a new level. It will be challenging to meet these standards within acceptable costs. "Wayfarer has already built more than 2,000 homes that were successfully assessed under EcoHomes, so we are well prepared to reach the next and more worthy eco-performance levels."