Sixteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

The University of Concepción is commited to strengthening its contribution to sustainable development, within the scope of its academic mission. This involves designing and implementing action plans to include sustainability issues in courses in all undergraduate and graduate programs, valuing research efforts associated to the Sustainable Development Goals set by United Nations, and stablishing environmental improvement programs, among other measures. Within this context, this paper presents quantitative information on the environmental performance indicators of the University of Concepcion. These indicators feature a life cycle perspective and were estimated on the basis of primary data, using ISO 14040-44/2006 as the methodological framework, and Recipe Endpoint as the environmental impact model. Results show that the main impact categories composing the University environmental profile were fossil fuels depletion, climate change, land use, and particulate matter formation. Energy consumption was identified as the most important factor affecting environmental performance and, consequently, a 8% annual reduction in energy usage was stablished as an institutional target covering all academic activities. This work contributes with a novel methodological approach to support environmental management in academic institutions.