ABSTRACT
Meeting the information needs of decision-makers at all levels so that they too “think global, act local” is a key element in the United Nations’ (UN) action plans for dealing with unsustainable development (UN Environment Programme 1972; UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs 1992, 2002). How to communicate knowledge effectively through multiple levels of decision-making has thus been part of the sustainable development challenge facing the scientifi c and technological communities for over three decades. Examples of previous work on this task include: the Social and Environmental Accounting project, originating in 1971 and ongoing (Mathews 1997; Owen 2008); the Linking Knowledge with Action for Sustainable Development project (Clark and Holliday 2006); and the UN’s Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005-2014.
