In the Netherlands with respect to sustainable educational building the main focus has been on energy saving. Recently some schools were built as rather environmental friendly schools with more attention to comfort and health aspects. The first NZEB designed school is analyzed and the results compared with other more traditional schools. With all the enthusiasm for NZEB buildings it is good to look into the pro and contra. In the past important necessary technological and organizational changes were frustrated and thus delayed as people only focused on the positive aspects and forgot about the possible negative aspects. This then resulted in disappointing pilot projects. Therefore the article will give a list of advantages and disadvantages and will come up with recommendations to gain more and lose less in the process of doing so. The way to approach the design task is to look for win win situations, find those solutions which increases the advantages of NZEB while at the same time improve some of the NZEB disadvantages characteristics. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.