A few weeks ago, during our presentation at the EABIS Colloquium, I recounted some daunting numbers delivered by Simon Zadek, Chief Executive of AccountAbility-  precluding positive outcomes for global climate change – the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time.

This week, I offer another number:  350. And a date: October 24. 

That’s 350 parts per million - the number scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

And Saturday October 24 is International Climate Action Day – a global event that is shaping up to be the largest grassroots environmental action since Earth Day. 

It’s like a universal potluck– only, instead of food - you bring hope, ideas and strength in numbers.  This is a tipping point, you see – a big buildup to Copenhagen in December, when World leaders decide to either take real, decisive action to save our planet, economy, people – or continue business and politics as usual.

With a tangible goal (get below 350 ppm) and 4,000 actions in 169 countries on Saturday – the  signs for change are physical, metaphorical – and, well, global.

So, on Saturday – I’ll bike into our City Center with my family and stand with a few thousand other people working toward a profound and lasting shift in behavior, policy and business. 

See you there?

I believe in the intelligent edge. This is the point where the tension between boundaries and new frontiers is the strongest and the balance between advancement and retreat is the most profound.

In fact, much of innovation plays with this sense of equilibrium, sometimes at widely fluctuating rates. Ideas evolve faster than a marketplace can absorb; renewable energy solutions outpace investment dollars and infrastructure renewal; climate change overtakes market reform.

But when the balance is in perfect harmony between the concept and the demand, the intelligent edge begins to shine with vigor. Take economic innovation, for example. For years people like Hernando de Soto, Paul Romer, Noreena Hertz and the recent Nobel Prize for Economic winners Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, have developed and championed unique economic approaches that sit at the boundaries of law, physics, anthropology and political science. When investments were at an all time high, prosperity rang a bell every 15 minutes and warnings of a dire future didn't exist, their theories received little practice within the stable marketplace.

However, after the economic meltdown of last year, suddenly these theories are finding their intelligent edge: the poetic balance between new thinking and opportunities of fulfillment. For instance, the financial industry has been quick to court new approaches through radical forms of social investment models that yield investment returns with social or environmental benefit.

The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) combines a membership pool of big banks, philanthropic institutions and investment management firms. This mixing of mainstream financial interests with socially motivated organizations moves charitable activity into the sphere of profitable business. This ties deep, social benefits to investment return, and places profit into the human, social and climate context.

But where GIIN has the advantage of a rising Phoenix, corporations are wrestling with how to embrace new thinking in a sea of legacy leadership set against the obvious opportunity of change. IBM has created a unique program that not only embraces an intelligent edge in its application, but is the beginnings of an adaptive business model that blends the best practices of NGOs, business, public/private partnerships, ethics and social impact with emerging leadership.

Dubbed the Corporate Service Corp, IBM sends its top executive teams into emerging markets like Africa, Asia and Latin America to provide business consulting skills for NGOs, local businesses and organizations. For one month IBM employees have the opportunity to intersect on challenges in the developing world, honing their leadership and transferring skills into developing economies; conversely, IBM employees bring a well-developed socially responsible mindset back into the corporate environment. These emerging leaders -over time- transform the corporate culture, decision framework and business behavior to one that embraces the social, human and climate context of globalization –where the tension between profit and responsibility begins to find a new harmonic and meaningful balance.

Our institutions, ideas, economies, markets and human presence hang on this fulcrum of advancement or retreat. Where the line between reshaping our future and returning to business as usual will clearly define the next generation of our emotional, intellectual and social evolution. Embracing this intelligent edge will be the necessary attunement to a new organizational hybrid that places social and climate implications at the center of all our motivations.