There are, presently, two schools of thought when it comes to designing buildings that promote sustainable development. One school emphasizes materials use and "green" buildings, while the other emphasizes energy use and low energy/solar buildings. The promoters of "green" buildings often claim that the reduced energy use during operation of the low energy and solar buildings is counteracted by the increased embodied energy in these buildings. This paper describes the results of a study of embodied energy and energy use in operation during the lifetime in a wooden row house. The house, designed and;built as a solar house with very low energy use during operation, is located in southern Norway. It features both passive and active solar measures. In the study, the built version is compared with four other versions: two versions where the house is designed according to the requirements of the new Norwegian Building Code, one version where the house is designed according to present standards in Norway, and one version where the house is designed according to the principles used by the architects presently building "green" buildings in Norway. The results, which are also compared with some results from German studies, show that solar buildings have a lower overall energy use, when both embodied energy and energy use during operation are taken into account. The results also show that there should be little difference between the approaches of the two schools of thought. The best buildings will generally be those that are both solar, low energy, and "green".