Four different methods to account for complex relationships between regional and local viability/sustainability and vulnerability have been investigated. The ecological footprint technique, emergy analysis, natural capital evaluation and compensation areas methods are used to infer and synthesize different sustainability/viability aspects of the Swiss territory. The results of this study and assay suggest coherency and complementarity of the multiple methodology used. Furthermore, bio-geographical, bio-physical and economic particularities of Switzerland, that differ largely from canton to canton, determine an important variation of local sustainability levels and capacity of response to climate forcing in action. We thus propose next to a general Swiss approach of sustainability, a subsequent differential treatment of cantons, based on spatial inequalities that are linked to primary physical, biological and economical structures and potentials. Despite of a unifying, global and federal approach, the implementation of sustainability measures and laws should be afterwards modulated in the case of each canton, by accounting for all these physical, biological, and anthropogenic disparities (equity treatment).