Especially in OECD countries, the reduction of primary energy consumption is a major task to avoid further increase in CO2 emissions. Since 37% of the annual energy consumption is related to the building sector, it is a major challenge for the future to develop methods for significant improvement of the energy efficiency of building design, construction and operation. It has to be noted that the development of sustainable buildings addresses both engineering and social aspects. From an engineering viewpoint methods to improve the ecologic efficiency of buildings by increasing the lifetime have to be provided. From a social viewpoint these new approaches must take the future needs of society into consideration. In addition, also governance structures and the regulatory framework for the construction and operation of buildings need to be modified in the direction of sustainability. The article will initially identify the major research topics for the development of sustainable design principles for buildings. Afterwards, structural requirements will be defined and translated into required property profiles for building materials. Herein, both mechanical and functional properties are of importance, so that approaches will be presented how to combine these properties in composite building materials. With respect to mechanical properties, new steels will have to be developed with an improved balance of strength and ductility, so that some promising steel design concepts will be shown. Additionally, new approaches for the failure assessment of these new steel types will be presented to enhance the exploitation of the characteristics of the innovative materials.