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.) |
---|---|---|---|
Juvenile Temporary Detention Center
1100 S Hamilton Ave
| Mixed Use Property | 9.5
Highest 33%
| 9,742
Highest 6%
|
Thorndale Beach South Condominium Association
5855 N Sheridan Rd
| Multifamily Housing | 9.4
Highest 33%
| 2,706
Highest 35%
|
640 N LaSalle Dr
640 N LaSalle St
| Office | 9.4
Highest 33%
| 2,648
Highest 35%
|
Gentile Arena
🏆
6511 N Sheridan Rd
| College/University | 9.4
Highest 33%
| 1,004
#2 Lowest
|
353 N Clark St
🚩
353 N Clark St
| Office | 9.4
Highest 33%
| 12,769
Highest 4%
|
Mckay, Francis M -CPS
6929 S Fairfield
| K-12 School | 9.4
Highest 33%
| 1,203
Lowest 15%
|
Englewood Academy HS -CPS
6201 S Stewart Ave
| K-12 School | 9.4
Highest 33%
| 1,778
Lowest 41%
|
840 Lake Shore Condominium Association
840 N Lake Shore Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 9.4
Highest 33%
| 2,613
Highest 36%
|
7033 N KEDZIE AVE
7033 N KEDZIE AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 9.4
Highest 33%
| 3,042
Highest 30%
|
Altgeld Gardens
🚩
925 E 130th St
| Multifamily Housing | 9.4
Highest 33%
| 11,064
Highest 5%
|
55 E Monroe
🚩
55 E Monroe St
| Office | 9.3
Highest 34%
| 15,558 #37 Highest
|
550 W Jackson
550 W Jackson Blvd
| Office | 9.3
Highest 34%
| 4,098
Highest 20%
|
The Buckingham Condominium Association
360 E Randolph St
| Multifamily Housing | 9.3
Highest 34%
| 4,720
Highest 17%
|
Ellington Elementary -CPS
243 N Parkside Ave
| K-12 School | 9.3
Highest 34%
| 1,044
Lowest 4%
|
Grand Blvd Plaza
5401 S WENTWORTH AVE
| Strip Mall | 9.3
Highest 34%
| 1,287
Lowest 19%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data