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.) |
---|---|---|---|
311 S Wacker
🚩
311 S Wacker
| Office | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 10,757
Highest 5%
|
Illinois Masonic Medical Office Center
3000 N HALSTED ST
| Medical Office | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 1,075
Lowest 5%
|
142 E Ontario St
142 E Ontario St
| Office | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 1,056
Lowest 4%
|
Presidents Plaza 2
🏆
8700 W Bryn Mawr Ave
| Office | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 3,323
Highest 27%
|
The Bristol Condominium Association
57 E Delaware Pl
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 3,657
Highest 24%
|
1250 N Dearborn Condominium Association
1250 N DEARBORN ST
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 1,105
Lowest 8%
|
65 E SCOTT ST
65 E SCOTT ST
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 1,629
Lowest 35%
|
765 W Adams St
765 W Adams St
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 2,627
Highest 36%
|
Chicago Temple Building
77 W Washington
| Office | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 1,795
Lowest 42%
|
4600 N CLARENDON AVE
🏆
4600 N CLARENDON AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 1,020
#23 Lowest
|
Chicago Triplex
515 N Clark St
| Hotel | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 2,580
Highest 37%
|
William Castleman Apartments
🏆
4945 N Sheridan Rd
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 1,118
Lowest 8%
|
600 N Fairbanks Condo Association
600 N Fairbanks Ct
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 2,863
Highest 33%
|
300 South Wacker Property LLC
300 S Wacker Dr
| Office | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 4,487
Highest 19%
|
Museum Tower Residences Condo Association
1335 S Prairie Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5
Lowest 46%
| 2,707
Highest 35%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data