Determining the Impact on a University Campus in Mexico: Toward a Nearly Zero Emissions Campus

University centers are spaces of significant human interaction. The activities carried out in these places demand large amounts of resources and produce much waste. In Mexico, over 3.65 million students are at this higher level in more than 3000 universities. Located on the Pacific coast, the University of Colima is the main higher education institution in the region, covering the greater demand of 65% of students divided into six large University campuses. The hard sciences campus, which includes Architecture, Chemical Sciences, and Civil-Electrical-Mechanical Engineering, has an enrollment of about 3000 students. To find out the impact generated by the activity within this campus, a group of more than 80 researchers and students from various areas of knowledge met to diagnose the impact of human activities in four main areas. This study’s objective was to analyze human activities’ impact on water, energy, and waste, as well as the indoor environmental quality within the university campus. The document presents the methodology used to obtain information from these areas to generate proposals to mitigate the impacts produced by this activity. The studied areas were energy, indoor environmental quality, waste, and water. The energy group determines the energy consumption and the electrical equipment installed on the campus. The Indoor Environmental quality group studied the dry bulb temperature, RH, sound, and light preferences of the users. The waste group analyzed the quantity and quality of the waste. Finally, the water group studied the water supply, distribution, or use. The results will lead to enforcement plans, programs, and actions to reduce the effects on the university and to meet the SDGs in the short term.