Charlie Kronick of Greenpeace said: "These Olympic proposals deserve the wooden spoon.

 

"In 2012, climate change will be the biggest issue on the planet. And yet the Olympic Delivery Authority are planning to belch way too much climate trashing gases into the atmosphere.

 

"Their somewhat vague targets are nowhere near where they should be aiming.

 

"Given that the Government is expecting all new homes to be zero carbon emitting by 2016, the ODA's wooly figure of a 50 per cent reduction is pitiful.

 

"And the ODA has also dealt a hammer blow to the world's remaining forests by accepting the Government's Central Point of Expertise on Timber (CPET) as proof of sustainability.

 

"CPET is a license to wreck ancient forests and has been an utter failure at stopping illegal timber flooding into Government building sites.

 

"By accepting it as the benchmark for the 2012 Olympics the world's last remaining forests could well be for the high jump.

 

"The so-called 'Greenest Games in modern times' have, sadly, fallen at the first hurdle."

 

Darren Johnson, London Assembly Green Party member, said: “The 2012 Olympics should set an exemplary environmental standard for London and other world cities.

 

“Today’s announcement does include some welcome steps towards a sustainable Olympics, such as strong recycling targets and a combined heat and power system.”

 

“But there’s still a long way to go before London 2012 lives up to its aspiration of ‘the greenest Olympics ever’. 

 

"Plans for an ‘energy self-sufficient’ Olympic Village have been scaled back, and the policies fall well short of the Mayor’s own ‘preferred’ sustainable construction standards.”

 

Johnson has also issued a list of what he considers to be the good and bad points of the strategy.

 

The high points include 90 per cent of demolition materials will be reused or recycled, the media centre will have a wildlife-friendly ‘brown roof’ and other buildings may have ‘green roofs’ and 50 per cent of construction materials will be transported to the site by water or rail – cutting down on the number of lorries.

 

But the low points are that Olympic Village plans include only 20 per cent on-site renewable energy, in contrast with the previous commitment to an ‘energy self-sufficient Athletes’ Village’.  The Government wants all homes to be zero carbon by 2016

 

He also criticises the fact that residential water use will be over 130 litres per person per day, compared with the Mayor’s ‘preferred standard’ of only 70 litres and plans in the Olympics bid for a new waste treatment plant to transform sewage into renewable energy appear to have been dropped.

 

Johnson had last week published his own list of five key benchmark environmental targets for measuring the success of the 2012 Games.