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This site is a collaborative project advocating for sustainability and solutions to logistical problems that thrives based off of your participation.

CAPSI

CAPSI stands for Continental Action Plan for Sustainable Industry. It was created as a project of OnTrackNorthAmerica (OTNA), a non-profit focused on rail-based solutions to sustainability and logistics. CAPSI is a wiki project whose purpose is to organize thought leaders and interested parties to develop a knowledge base that will improve humanity. Through your effort, writing and editing articles can help to contribute to a better understanding of the issues we face as a nation.

Getting Started

Explore

We recommend exploring the website on your own and getting familiar with our core ethics and ideals

• Industrial Action Plans (IAP) - What problems are we trying to solve and how we plan to solve them.
• VitalRail - One of CAPSI's core IAPs. Trying to achieve better utilization of rail compared to truck freighting.
• BrainTrust - Our supporters and stakeholders
• IntelliConferences - Meetings between industry professionals discussing solutions to relevant problems. Access them here.

Commitment

CAPSI is a different kind of website. Signing up for CAPSI, it is expected that you will not only read and adhere to our Code of Ethics, but also stay up to date on topics relevant to our industry.

When you're ready, review the expected commitment of our stakeholders. Will list here when we have it.

Registered Stakeholders - A role for those who believe in our mission and want to stay connected with our wiki

Participating Stakeholder - As a participating stakeholder in CAPSI, you will be expected to contribute and interact with our site over a specific commitment period. Reading, adding, and editing articles are all viable ways to interact as a participating member.

Participation

1. Required reading to becoming a stakeholder
2. Sign-up process

More about CAPSI

Where stakeholders throughout North America redesign sustainable industrial systems that work for everyone.

This is the breakthrough society needs to solve the urgent challenge of expanding economic vitality while preserving our environment. From natural resources, agriculture, and raw materials to production, distribution, consumption, and recycling, our society can redesign its fragmented industrial systems. We must act quickly. Our first Industry Action Plan (IAP) is VitalRail, which focuses on optimizing railroads as the backbone of a multimodal transportation network that serves all industries.

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.

What do we mean by sustainable?

Sustainable is the primary design goal of industrial systems: supporting the long-lasting, harmonious co-existence of humans and nature within our abundantly resourced, yet finite ecosystem.

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 38,000 stakeholders across North America’s industrial, political, and geographic landscape. For each IAP process we initiate, we 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.

Why include Canada, the United States, and Mexico?

Although Canada, the United States, and Mexico already engage in extensive cross-border trade, they can greatly benefit from the enhanced coordination provided by our IAPs. These are designed for specific industrial systems and geographic regions while maintaining crucial links to related plans, rather than creating isolated solutions. Unlike traditional studies that often remain unused on a shelf, our dynamic process delivers immediate, measurable results through continuous stakeholder engagement.