According to the 2022 Chicago Climate Action Plan, a whopping 69% of Chicago's emissions come from buildings, making it our biggest challenge and our biggest opportunity as a city to tackle change. At Electrify Chicago we want to showcase some of the best and worst performing buildings in the city using publicly available data and manual annotations to add building photographs and label multi-building owners like universities.
You can start by looking at Chicago's buildings with the highest greenhouse gas intensity - this means that they use the most energy when adjusted per unit of square foot, so big buildings could actually perform much better than very inefficient small buildings on this metric.
Note: This data only includes buildings whose emissions are reported under the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Ordinance. According to the City “As of 2016, this list includes all commercial, institutional, and residential buildings larger than 50,000 square feet.” This dataset is also then filtered to only buildings with reported emissions > 1,000 metric tons CO2 equivalent.
This data is also from 2020, but when new benchmark data is available, we'll update the site.
Property Name / address | Primary Property Type |
Greenhouse Gas Intensity (kg CO2/sqft) |
Total Greenhouse Emissions (metric tons CO2 eq.) |
---|---|---|---|
Walmart Supercenter #5402
4650 W North Ave
| Wholesale Club/Supercenter | 12.8
Highest 18%
| 1,808
Lowest 42%
|
Hilton Chicago O'Hare Airport
10000 W O'Hare Dr
| Hotel | 12.8
Highest 18%
| 6,605
Highest 11%
|
Chicago Bar Association
321 S Plymouth Ct
| Office | 12.7
Highest 18%
| 1,262
Lowest 17%
|
#1976 Lincoln Park
🏆
2647 2679 N Halsted St
| Retail Store | 12.7
Highest 18%
| 1,015
#13 Lowest
|
McCormick Tribune Campus Center
📷
(Illinois Tech)
3201 S State Street
| College/University | 12.7
Highest 18%
| 1,189
Lowest 14%
|
340 E Superior Street
340 E Superior Street
| College/University | 12.7
Highest 18%
| 2,382
Highest 41%
|
Washington HS , George -CPS
3535 E 114th St
| K-12 School | 12.6
Highest 18%
| 2,701
Highest 35%
|
(ILCH1212) - Park Michigan [external]
1212 S Michigan Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 12.5
Highest 18%
| 2,979
Highest 31%
|
105 W MADISON ST
105 W MADISON ST
| Office | 12.5
Highest 18%
| 1,749
Lowest 41%
|
Harlem-Foster Shopping Center
7240 W Foster Ave
| Strip Mall | 12.5
Highest 18%
| 3,425
Highest 26%
|
618 S Michigan Ave
618 S Michigan Ave
| College/University | 12.4
Highest 19%
| 1,130
Lowest 9%
|
Hostelling International Chicago, The J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Hostel
24 E Congress Pkwy
| Hotel | 12.4
Highest 19%
| 1,243
Lowest 17%
|
Block 37
108 North State Street
| Enclosed Mall | 12.4
Highest 19%
| 5,308
Highest 14%
|
Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center
1250 W 119th St
| Fitness Center/Health Club/Gym | 12.4
Highest 19%
| 1,966
Lowest 47%
|
Home Federal
11 E Adams St
| Office | 12.4
Highest 19%
| 1,997
Lowest 48%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data