Sustainable building practices are not yet mainstream, leading to a delay in manufacturers placing products on the market, one expert has suggested.

Vince Lunn, operations director at specialist construction product firm SIG, said that there is still not large scale use of more environmentally-friendly products, such as phase change materials.

These products effectively prevent the number of incidences when a room heats and cools quickly by absorbing and releasing latent heat.

Mr Lunn said that the construction industry should be looking at how such products can be used more creatively, rather than simply using them within walls.

"Our biggest problem is that we can bring them to the market place, but unless people start designing them in and start using them, they won't become mainstream," he added.

However, the sustainable building industry received a blow early this week when a key programme was axed due to government cost cutting measures.

Savings required from the Department of Energy and Climate Change meant that the Low Carbon Buildings Programme was closed to new applications. It was argued that the funding supplied under the feed-in tariff meant the programme was no longer needed to support the installation of microgeneration equipment.