There are often no easy answers to environmental and sustainable challenges in the way to Green economy. Long-term building ideas developed in other countries known as sustainable building are becoming more popular also in Latvia. The development of sustainable building is stimulated with the help of many conditions: economic (necessity of saving resources and energy), social (market – tailored according to the needs of the consumers; high demand for the qualitative accommodations). In this paper the basic principles of sustainable building and management have been studied, as well as the relevant technical criteria have been analyzed. The paper provides recommendations for the improvement of the situation