Planetary boundaries urge humans to reverse their relation to nature, by considering themselves as a part of nature and by reaching natural ecosystems regeneration. This paradigm shift compels humans to moderate their activities, to stay within a “safe operating space”, by being, doing and having “just enough”. Still, since rationally limited humans cannot individually reach enough-ness, they rely on organizations to collectively define and reach this purpose. We draw on Princen’s work on “sufficiency”, to theorize the search for enough-ness as an organizing principle. Specifically, we use a multi-level approach on goal-setting to develop a theory about how to set organizational goals of enough-ness. We derive three relational mechanisms (sensing, valuing, and binding) that explain how organizational actors can willingly adapt their aspirations to fit with natural interdependencies. Organizational goals, in turn, bind behaviors and outcomes, allowing human societies, at aggregated level, to remain in a safe operating space. Our work contributes to sustainability theories by laying the foundations of a model of “climate-proofed” organizing to operate within finite natural ecosystems.
