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.) |
---|---|---|---|
Westinghouse HS -CPS
3301 W Franklin Blvd
| K-12 School | 9.3
Highest 34%
| 2,087
Highest 49%
|
936 E 47TH ST
936 E 47TH ST
| Multifamily Housing | 9.3
Highest 34%
| 1,269
Lowest 18%
|
Hard Rock Hotel
230 N Michigan Ave
| Hotel | 9.3
Highest 34%
| 2,787
Highest 33%
|
The Elm at Clark
1122 N Clark St
| Multifamily Housing | 9.3
Highest 34%
| 3,312
Highest 27%
|
5445 Edgewater Plaza Condo Association
5445 N Sheridan Rd
| Multifamily Housing | 9.3
Highest 34%
| 3,973
Highest 22%
|
Misericordia Home
6300 N Ridge Ave
| Mixed Use Property | 9.3
Highest 34%
| 6,641
Highest 11%
|
Harris Bank Building
🚩
115 S LaSalle St
| Office | 9.3
Highest 34%
| 14,249 #45 Highest
|
NMH 211 East Ontario
211 E Ontario St
| Office | 9.2
Highest 35%
| 1,727
Lowest 39%
|
303 E Wacker
🏆
303 E Wacker
| Office | 9.2
Highest 35%
| 9,381
Highest 7%
|
100 North Riverside Plaza
🏆
100 N Riverside Plz
| Office | 9.2
Highest 35%
| 8,082
Highest 8%
|
Target, Bedford Park (0841)
7100 S Cicero Ave
| Retail Store | 9.2
Highest 35%
| 1,158
Lowest 12%
|
Target, T2613 - Chicago Division
1200 N Larrabee St
| Retail Store | 9.2
Highest 35%
| 1,745
Lowest 40%
|
50 E Chestnut St
50 E Chestnut St
| Multifamily Housing | 9.2
Highest 35%
| 1,277
Lowest 18%
|
Olive-Harvey College
10001 S Woodlawn Ave
| College/University | 9.2
Highest 35%
| 3,641
Highest 24%
|
Lawson Partners
30 W Chicago
| Multifamily Housing | 9.2
Highest 35%
| 2,394
Highest 41%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data