Patti Prairie

The hotel industry is in the midst of a sustainability awakening -- and on a level deeper than offering guests the option to reuse bath towels. Industry leaders are beginning to get serious about their energy and environmental footprints. If we're lucky, this transition could include consumer accessibility to hotel...

As sustainability practices continue to mature, recent events and trends have set the stage for significant shifts in 2012.

1. External pressures mount

   While corporate sustainability efforts traditionally have been motivated by public relations, pressures increasingly are coming from other stakeholders. Investors are turning up the heat as they recognize...

For years the "open data" movement has promised a Field of Dreams: build it and they will come. Open your institution's databases and there will be no limit to the innovation unleashed as software developers transform this information into world-changing new applications.

Fifteen years into significant efforts by the U.S....

Yesterday Hipmunk announced that it has added Amtrak trains to flight search results. Reactions have been positive (e.g. VentureBeat, Gadling, Tnooz) and have focused on the lower prices and oftentimes better schedules that trains can offer travelers versus planes on certain routes.

America is now into the second month of the worst environmental disaster in the country's history. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is estimated to be leaking at a rate of 12 thousand (BP's estimate) and 100 thousand (independent scientists' upper-end estimate) barrels of oil a day. With each barrel, further...

It might be hard to believe, but we're about to turn the page on the first decade of the 21st century. As 2009 comes to a close, it's a good time to take a look back. Way back.

Remember when Ricky Martin topped the charts, The Matrix hit the...

Climate Change Lessons from Franklin, Thoreau, and Roosevelt

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon set a challenging objective for this week's Summit on Climate Change: "to mobilize the political will and vision needed to reach an ambitious agreed outcome based on science at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen."

Concerned...

Small Choices Add Up

What will Sarah Palin do now that she's a private citizen? One thing's for sure: she'll be out and about. And expect dozens, if not hundreds, of reporters to trail her every move. Like bees to honey, the press pool swarms.

Palin has not...

Debunking the Myth That It Costs Money to Reduce Emissions

As we face the dual challenges of a faltering economy and a changing climate, the time is ripe to reexamine our common presumptions about the economics of reducing carbon emissions. How many times have you heard...