OTNA/CAPSI Ethics

The OnTrackNorthAmerica Promise, Principles, Ethics, and Sustainability Commitment OnTrackNorthAmerica is a 501c3 non-profit that advises governments, businesses, and communities on sustainable industry, transportation, land use, and economic development.

Promise Statement and Your Invitation to the Team

OnTrackNorthAmerica promises to co-lead North America in redesigning its industrial systems to support sustainable life. You are invited to the team.

Principles for Collaboration

Lead from Community
When co-leadership with the community is working, leaders do what it takes to be trusted to advance the greatest good. Initiatives succeed when strong leadership stands for results and represents the community’s best interests.

Assume Responsibility

We are called to be responsible for the quality of our relationships. We focus on sharing the best in ourselves while recognizing the perspectives and strengths of others. In each conversation, we relate in ways that advance mutual learning and progress.

Thrive at Our Learning Edge
Producing the results we stand for requires us to learn continually. Change outside requires some change inside. What we are doing is unprecedented, and we’re constantly being trained. Bring it on!

Engage in Integrative Dialogue
Integrative dialogue transcends conventional debate, where either/or and right/wrong interactions marginalize many valuable perspectives. Especially when seemingly opposing points of view are expressed, we work together to synergize new understandings.

Articulate Questions
Writing and speaking in questions opens up new thinking and ideas, while statements tend to portray concerns as if they are intractable. Asking questions has the power to lead to results.

Gather all Perspectives
It’s commonly believed that including many stakeholders makes progress more challenging. In fact, inviting diverse experiences, concerns, and ideas often leads to imaginative, intelligent, elegant results. When it comes to collective intelligence, more is truly the merrier.

Celebrate and Energize
Leaning into positivity is vitally important to any concerted effort. We value each other’s participation and communicate our appreciation.

Be Accountable
There is power in clarity. Make promises you intend to keep and include a completion time. Then, complete it on time or give the team a heads-up and commit to a new time. When we first make a promise, we may face barriers to accomplishing the new task. These challenges are a function of our commitment, not our lack of commitment. Stay in the game.

Embrace Knowledge Sharing
Share rather than withhold information, ideas, and wisdom to create a world that works for all. Sharing accelerates productivity. It is time to scale up our collective intelligence.

Step into IntelliSynthesis^®
IntelliSynthesis® is the logic and intelligence all around us but so often hidden from view by posturing, positioning, and politicizing. When we engage with others in the community’s best interest, collective intelligence naturally moves us toward solutions that work for everyone.

Code of Ethics

Objectivity
OnTrackNorthAmerica does not accept financial sponsorships that require prioritization of individual business agendas over shared interests.

Inclusivity
OnTrackNorthAmerica invites representation from all involved stakeholder groups and facilitates “level playing field” dialogues wherein all participants’ perspectives are appreciated. Inclusivity is fundamental to our planning approach, and we welcome all regions and projects of any size.

Nonpartisanship
OnTrackNorthAmerica maintains the autonomy of a politically non-partisan entity.

Coordination and Collaboration
OnTrackNorthAmerica advances the thoughtful integration of collaboration with helpful competition.

Whole System Attention
OnTrackNorthAmerica embraces programs, policies, and planning that advance system-wide benefits.

Multimodalism
OnTrackNorthAmerica supports the utilization of all transport modes within a sound multimodal system.

Sustainability Commitment

Return-on-Investment
We believe that the return-on-investment analysis of economic development should account for all environmental and community impacts.

Acknowledging Unavoidable Elements
We acknowledge that some projects generate a degree of negative impact, which may be unavoidable in realizing a net positive contribution.

Transition from Fossil Fuels
We support investments in projects that enable the transition from fossil fuels, petrochemicals, and overuse of water while acknowledging the pragmatic challenges on the journey to a cleaner economy. We guide our clients and communities to align their planning and investment horizons with the rapid evolution of these markets.

Connecting with Community Stewards

We advise project developers to interact proactively with community leaders, whose influence on advancing or blocking projects makes them valuable partners.

Including Everyone

Including everyone benefiting from or impacted by a project is critical to successful design and implementation.

Best Interest of the Community and Environment
In addition to communicating if a project is not financially viable, we also illuminate when the community's best interests or the environment are not being served.

There are four steps to evaluating every project for alignment with these values and goals.

1. Each project’s commodities, activities, and impacts are cataloged.

2. For nuanced and complex projects, we conduct research to complete our understanding of environmental and community impacts.

3. We share our findings with the team and stakeholders to invite all perspectives.

4. Together, we decide how to properly influence the project’s sustainability.

We hold ourselves accountable to future generations by working only on projects that align with a sustainable environment and healthy communities.

Your Opportunity to Promise

Indicate each promise that fits for you:

☐I promise to uphold OnTrackNorthAmerica’s principles and ethics and contribute to its goals

while on the OTNA Team.

☐I promise to evolve my economic activities to align with the redesign of industrial systems to ensure sustainable life on Earth.

☐I promise to support society in redesigning its industrial systems to ensure sustainable life on

Earth.

☐I promise to co-lead society in redesigning its industrial systems to ensure sustainable life on

Earth.

Signature _____________________________________ Date________________________

Name ____________________________________

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