Toward a harmonized approach for evaluating GHG emissions in high-end hotels with implications for China

Frameworks for assessing greenhouse gas emissions have been established to quantify, benchmark, and certify the environmental performance of hotels throughout their life cycles. However, these frameworks exhibit significant variations in methodological scope, system boundaries, and practical applicability. As a result, they are often used interchangeably despite serving distinct analytical purposes, leading to inconsistencies in reported emissions and challenges in decision-making, particularly in complex operational contexts such as luxury hotels and in regions where globally harmonized assessment practices are inconsistently represented. This study undertakes a structured, comparative review of hotel-specific GHG frameworks derived from peer-reviewed literature, industry methodologies, and grey literature through systematic searches and targeted screening. The approaches are categorized into three functional types: methodological calculation, benchmarking, and certification, and are compared based on boundary definition, functional units, data requirements, transparency, and suitability for high-end hotel operation. To explore the practical implications of these methodological differences, insights from a representative luxury international chain hotel in Beijing were incorporated as an illustrative case. The analysis revealed trade-offs between analytical completeness, comparability, and feasibility. No single framework fully addresses the operational and contextual needs of high-end hotels in the context of China’s evolving regulations and energy systems. Building on the shared elements identified across frameworks, this study proposes a harmonized conceptual approach to hotel GHG assessments and discusses its implications for application in the Chinese context. These findings contribute to the methodological clarity of hospitality sustainability research and provide guidance for various stakeholders seeking a more transparent and context-appropriate evaluation of hotel-related emissions.