ABSTRACT
Man-made systems use and transform resources in all sectors. As human activities surpass the available resources the sum of our activities put the basis for future generations and other species at stake. The results of such unsustainable growth are system-wide crisis such as climate change as well as sectorial failures of the environmental capacity to sustain human activities such as depletion of resources (e.g. peak oil). When regarding our planet as such it seems obvious that limited natural resources are provided and thus use of this global reservoir is highly interconnected. In practice this is often ignored by relying on sectorial or national assessments of the economy and its environmental impact. Multi-scale modelling can support decision-making at all levels to identify local targets that are in line with global sustainable development.
