The aim of the “School of the Future” project is to design, demonstrate, evaluate and communicate shining examples of how to reach the future high performance building level. School buildings and their primary users pupils - the next generations - are in the focus of the project. Both, the energy and indoor environment performance of 4 demo buildings in 4 European countries and climates will be greatly improved due to holistic retrofit of the building envelope, the service systems, the integration of renewables and building management systems. The results and the accompanying research and dissemination efforts to support other actors dealing with building retrofits will lead to a multiplied impact on other schools and on the residential sector, since the pupils will act as communicators to their families. The user behaviour and the awareness of energy efficiency and indoor environment will be improved due to tailored training sessions.Zero emission buildings are a main goal in various country roadmaps for 2020. The demonstration buildings within the project may not completely reach this level as the aim of the call is cost efficiency and multiplication potential. The retrofit concepts will, however, result in buildings with far lower energy consumption than in regular retrofits with high indoor environment quality - thus leading the way towards zero emission. They can be considered as schools of the future. Results from national examples of zero emission schools will complete the information used for developing the deliverables such as guidelines, information tools, publications and a community at the EU BUILD UP portal.The project is based on close connection between demonstration, research and industry represented by the “design advice and evaluation group”. The proposal idea was introduced at the E2B association brokerage event with high interest which results in a consortium including well-known partners from the building industry.