In a building market oriented toward ever greater energy efficiency, the improvement of European Directive 31 at the national and regional levels accelerates Europe's transition to near zero and zero energy buildings. Because the directive's rules and definitions are still subject to discussion and debate at the international level, the implementation and the monitoring of pilot experiments can provide useful information to manage the complexity inherent in this new generation of buildings. This paper, by starting out with an examination of state of the art near zero- and zero energy buildings, describes a pilot certification scheme promoted by the Province of Milan (Italy) and implemented in Italy in collaboration with the local builders association. A case study of the application of this new procedure, which uses a quality-driven approach, is then described and discussed. The certification process proposed highlights the fundamental role of contribution of renewable energy sources in achieving high performance standard of zero energy buildings. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.