When you talk about China, you have to think big, really big.

China's Ministry of Commerce just announced that China will try to build 10,000 green hotels by 2012. How big is this goal? China opened less than 400 new hotels annually for the past three years; it hosted the Olympic Games last year. China currently has about 15,000 star-rated hotels. We will likely see an increase of 67 percent in the next four years if the plan is accomplished.

Chinese hotels are rated by a five-star system (five is the highest) based on the National Hotel Rating System similar to international hotel ratings, values comfort level and quality of service. The newly released National Green Hotel Standard uses a five-leaf system, the ginkgo leaf as its logo, to rate green hotels.

Based on the new standards, a green hotel should maximize resource efficiency, minimize its impact on environment, and ensure safety and health services. The rating matrix includes green design, environmental policy, green consumption, green action, clean production and hazardous waste treatment. The highest possible score is 300. 

• Five leaf: 280 points
• Four leaf: 250 points
• Three leaf: 220 points
• Two leaf: 200 points
• One leaf: 180 points

The 10,000 green hotels are expected to use 20 percent less water and 20 percent less electricity, and to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 45,000 tonnes.

It's uncertain how the well established five-star rating system would interact with the five-leaf green rating system. It is hard to believe that the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Development (MOHURD, formerly known as the Ministry of Construction) was not involved in the standard development. MOHURD is in charge of the construction industry and has issued the Building Energy Efficiency Standard and the Green Building Standard for commercial and residential buildings, which should cover hotels. Instead, the green hotel standard was written by the Ministry of Commerce, NDRC (not NRDC, which is us), the Ministry of Environment Protection, and other three government agencies, in partnership with the China Hotel Association. How the 20 percent energy savings goal would be benchmarked to the MOHURD's green building standard is unclear.

Nevertheless, the green hotel standard has a long way to go before being widely accepted by the hotel industry, suggested by a managing director of an international hotel management group located in Beijing and Shanghai. Already, the green rating standard adds a layer of complexity and confusion to the existing hotel rating system. He told me a story that took place in Guizhou Province. A hotel designed to achieve the four-star standard failed the four-star appraisal after construction was completed. It ended up hanging a five-leaf green hotel logo in the lobby. Even though consumers didn't know what the five-leaf logo was for, they believed the five-leaf was better than the four-star-a happy ending for the hotel owner and the consumers. But does this really serve the purpose of the new standards?

The ongoing global financial crisis could make the 10,000-green-hotel goal unreachable. The five-star Beijing Westin Hotel, which proudly accommodated President Bush during the Olympic Games, now can barely maintain a booking rate of 40 to 50 percent. It was reported that many luxury hotels in Shanghai saw their booking rates dropping to as low as 10 percent at the start of 2009.

Even without the economic downturn, the 10,000 goal is still questionable. As Mr. Hasek pointed out, if these hotels are going to be built anyway, then it's great to build them green. But does China really need so many in four years? No environmental impact analysis has been done for the proposed 10,000 new hotels.

Given the existing stock volume and market conditions, the goal of 10,000 green hotels in four years could well be just a push for promoting the newly released green hotel standard. But since many local governments prefer to build quality hotels to attract investors, the 10,000-green-hotel campaign could give them a much-needed reason to build-in name of GREEN. I would rather see at least part of the investment go towards retrofitting existing hotels to the green standard