Is anything truly "sustainable"?

The Head of Nursing at the Atlanta-based hospital recently spoke out. She's one of the hospital leaders taking in the controversial Ebola patients. I thought her perspective was fascinating, and a common one that we hear it business. She said something to effect of "we're the best place to handle this difficult challenge and it's the reason we exist". It was fascinating that she was willing to speak out, document her thoughts, and share them. I'll be watching to see how it plays out because I consider her move to be one of fundamental KM - ie "work out loud" and be transparent about decisions (and the progress along the way).

I'm having more and more collaboration meetings inside and outside of work. The UK seems very interested in "how" to do KM. The interest seems to stem from a very nice assumption "of course it's valuable".

One of my uncles was passing through London on a trip around the world. We met up at a pub and had a great conversation. One of the topics was "how to negotiate in different cultures". We basically boiled it down to "aggressive negotiations" vs "considerate negotiations". Aggressive negotiations probably require a short temper, loud voice and succinct rationale. Considerate negotions take much more time and finesse.

All of this leads me to a question I've been pondering lately, is anything really sustainable? I've often referenced the Peter Senge quote of "the only sustainable competitive advantage is an organizations ability to learn faster than it's competition". But then there's been a lot of talk that competitive advantage is shifting away from "taking market share" and moving toward "creating and delighting customers". That's a very different way of thinking, and it implies a very different way of operating as a business. 

The balance between long term and short term appears to be unobtainable. I often hear that we're taking on projects because "they're good for the long term" or "will build a foundation for us to build upon". For a moment I'd like to challenge the assumption of "sustainable is possible, and good". 

Let's say we're re-building a nation. Sustainable infrastructure would be a great thing. We'd like to have roads, schools, communications, etc. But even if we invest in all of that, how do we know if it will last? How do we know if people will use it? Will people like the results (for example, choosing to setup mobile infrastructure vs land line infrastructure)?

I certainly see the value of things that stand the test of time. And I certainly do not want to aim for only quick fixes. And I don't think all effort and progress is futile. I think I'm trying to say that sustainable is a word, or a goal, that needs to be clearly defined in context. The team should understand if it means sustainable for one year, or 5 years or a lifetime or many generations. "How long should it be a sustainable base, and what would be the consequences of innovative disruptions over that time period" might be quite a key question to discuss up front. We might be surprised by the varying answers of each person.