Each office worker in Mexico generates about 300 grams of waste during a workday¹. In Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey—the country’s three main corporate hubs—that adds up to roughly 280 tons per day², enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool with trash every five days. It may seem small—just 0.2% of the country’s total waste—but it’s enough to show how much we throw away without realizing it, just by going to work.

Most of that waste isn’t recycled: it’s mixed and sent to municipal dumps that generally lack separation or recovery processes. Yet nearly half of it could be reused, and a third is organic or compostable. The rest—contaminated or single-use materials—has no second life. In offices, that means printed paper, coffee cups, disposable plastics, and food scraps slowly decaying under tons of waste, never returning to any productive cycle.

The real problem isn’t the volume—it’s the environmental impact. Piled-up, unmanaged waste releases gases and leachates that contaminate soil and water. Still, the greater challenge isn’t just generating less waste, but designing spaces that can reduce and reuse it more efficiently.

According to SiiLA, one in five office buildings in Mexico already holds environmental certifications, and one in fifteen under construction or in planning is incorporating them. Some of these properties—certified under systems such as LEED, EDGE, or BOMA Best—not only optimize water and energy use but also manage their waste more efficiently. They integrate on-site separation programs, compactors, organic composting, and verified recycling chains, while encouraging suppliers to minimize packaging or use recyclable materials. Documented cases show that structured management—based on separation, reuse, and the replacement of single-use materials—can recover up to one-third of corporate waste.

One example is Torre Cuarzo in Mexico City, whose waste management system enables it to generate less waste than 91% of comparable buildings, thanks to occupants who recycle around 34% of their waste.

Hence, the solution doesn’t lie at the end of the cycle—it starts at the beginning. In the corporate environment, moving toward a circular economy means rethinking how materials are consumed within buildings—from office supplies and furniture to the food and packaging that enter every day. Recycling helps, but it isn’t enough: real change happens when waste is prevented through operational design, not when we try to correct it afterward.

In practice, this means owners and property managers can play a decisive role by promoting zero-waste policies among tenants, including visible separation areas, agreements with certified recyclers, composting systems for cafeterias, and supplier contracts that reduce packaging or prioritize reusable materials. Even small actions—such as eliminating single-use plastics, installing hydration stations, or replacing disposable coffee machines—can measurably shrink a building’s footprint.

Beyond the environmental impact, efficient management of resources and waste also has a tangible economic effect: it lowers costs, strengthens corporate reputation, and makes buildings more competitive among tenants who prioritize sustainability. Certified properties, in fact, tend to command value premiums of up to 18% in sales and 13% in rents, as well as better financing terms, since the market perceives them as more stable and resilient assets³.

Ultimately, sustainability doesn’t begin in landfills—it starts at a desk. Understanding how and where waste is generated is the first step toward building more efficient offices and cities.

Access the full data behind this research at SiiLA Market Analytics or write to us at contacto@siila.com.mx.

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¹ Estimate based on the National Atlas of Urban Solid Waste (SEMARNAT/INECC, 2022), which reports an average generation of 0.9 kilograms per person per day in Mexico. For office environments—where commercial and service waste predominates—the figure was adjusted proportionally to an eight-hour workday, equivalent to roughly 0.3 kilograms per person per shift.

² Author’s calculation based on SiiLA data (Q3 2025) on total occupied gross leasable office area in the Mexico City metro area, Guadalajara, and Monterrey (8.3 million sqm), divided by the minimum space per employee set in Mexico’s Technical Building Standards for Architectural Design (9.3 m² per worker). The result—around 900,000 office workers—was multiplied by the adjusted waste generation rate of 0.3 kilograms per workday, yielding an estimated total of 280 tons of solid waste per day.

³ Based on findings from A Review of the Impact of Green Building Certification on the Cash Flows and Values of Commercial Properties (Leskinen et al., 2020); Green Building Value: Do Green-Rated Buildings Add a Premium to Sales Price? (Knight Frank, 2021); and Banking on Green Buildings (UNEP FI, 2024). The Knight Frank study reports increases of 8–18% in sales value and 3–13% in rents, while the other analyses highlight lower risk premiums and better financing conditions for environmentally certified developments.