Welcome to OnTrackNorthAmerica's Industry Action Plans

Where stakeholders in Canada, the United States, and Mexico redesign our industrial systems for sustainable life.

We invite you to collaborate on transformative industrial solutions that expand economic vitality while preserving our environment. Our first Industry Action Plan (IAP) is VitalRail, which focuses on optimizing railroads as the backbone of an integrated multimodal transportation network that serves all industries. Together we will redesign our fragmented industrial systems from natural resources, agriculture, and raw materials through production, distribution, consumption, and recycling.

What do we mean by industrial systems?

Industrial systems comprise the complete set of commercial, policy, and planning activities involved in delivering materials and products for modern civilization’s survival and fulfillment. This encompasses all inputs and impacts, including land use, transportation, recycling, and disposal. What occurs between properties is often as significant as what happens at a property.

What do we mean by redesign?

Redesigning industrial systems means working together to find and utilize ways to increase efficiency and reduce negative impacts. It begins with stakeholders establishing collective goals and pragmatic measures while recognizing the reality of prior strategies and investments. Redesigning may require judicious reconstruction, repurposing, and/or relocating some facilities. For instance, to create the most effective strategic mineral supply chain, we would intentionally position lithium mines, battery plants, vehicle factories, and recycling facilities to optimize systemwide logistics. We call this design process "Collaborative Industrial Optimization." Redesigning also calls for a paradigm shift wherein organizations and individuals are incentivized to contribute to systemwide sustainability.

Who are the stakeholders?

You are all stakeholders, along with everyone involved in or affected by our industrial systems. Developing IAPs for sustainable industries requires complete stakeholder representation. OnTrackNorthAmerica has already cataloged more than 32,000 stakeholders across North America’s industrial, political, and geographic landscape. For each IAP process we initiate, we will invite additional stakeholders to work toward complete representation from all sectors, including academia, advocacy organizations, business, community, funders, government, labor, and media.

How do we work together as stakeholders?

We convene stakeholders in IntelliConference® forums that apply IntelliSynthesis®, our breakthrough question-and-response dialogue method, to foster efficient input from large groups of diverse stakeholders. We invite participants from all relevant sectors in a given system or region to ensure that all perspectives are represented and have a voice. Each stakeholder agrees to read and respond to rounds of questions within seven days. The facilitation team creates and shares a digest of each round of responses, saving participants time. Outlier perspectives are considered for the value they may offer the group. The IntelliConference and IntelliSynthesis processes are explained in greater detail elsewhere on this website.

What do we mean by sustainable life?

Sustainable life is the long-lasting, harmonious co-existence of humans and nature within an abundantly resourced, yet finite ecosystem.

Why include Canada, the United States, and Mexico?

Though Canada, the United States, and Mexico already engage in extensive cross-border commerce, it can significantly benefit from the improved coordination facilitated by our IAPs. They are crafted for specific industrial systems and geographic regions, while still maintaining vital connections to all related plans, rather than merely producing isolated solutions. Unlike conventional studies that typically sit on a shelf, our dynamic process generates immediate, tangible outcomes through ongoing stakeholder engagement.