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 eq./sqft) |
Total Greenhouse Emissions (metric tons CO2 eq.) |
---|---|---|---|
5757 N. Sheridan Condominium Association
5757 N Sheridan Rd
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 1,590 tons
Highest 29%
|
Admirals Pointe Condominium Association
645 N Kingsbury St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 1,691 tons
Highest 28%
|
Eliot House Condominium Association
1255 N Sandburg Ter
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 2,503 tons
Highest 17%
|
Two East Oak Condominium Association
2 E Oak St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 2,027 tons
Highest 22%
|
Vision On State Condominium Association
1255 S State St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 2,200 tons
Highest 20%
|
3314 Lake Shore Drive Condo
3314 N LAKE SHORE DR
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 475 tons
Lowest 25%
|
230 East Ohio
230 E Ohio St
| Office | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 605 tons
Lowest 35%
|
The Chicago Building
7 W Madison St
| Residence Hall/Dormitory | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 840 tons
Lowest 48%
|
Jordan Elementary Community School
7414 N Wolcott Ave
| K-12 School | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 532 tons
Lowest 29%
|
1020 W Lawrence
1020 W LAWRENCE AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 1,520 tons
Highest 31%
|
Grand Kingsbury LLC
520 N Kingsbury St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 3,955 tons
Highest 10%
|
1401 South State
1401 S State St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 2,299 tons
Highest 19%
|
Michigan - 180 Property LLC
180 N Michigan Ave
| Office | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 1,842 tons
Highest 25%
|
CHICAGO MCKINLEY PARK (2078)
1940 W 33rd St
| Retail Store | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 1,107 tons
Highest 41%
|
1986 - 47TH AND WESTERN
4555 S Western Blvd
| Retail Store | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 825 tons
Lowest 48%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data