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.) |
---|---|---|---|
626 West Jackson
626 W Jackson Blvd
| Office | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 829 tons
Lowest 48%
|
Sheridan Lake
6401 N SHERIDAN RD
| Multifamily Housing | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 469 tons
Lowest 24%
|
Arthur J. Schmitt Academic Center
2320 N Kenmore Ave
| College/University | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 1,135 tons
Highest 40%
|
Lake Vista Apartments
1430 S INDIANA AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 2,298 tons
Highest 19%
|
1765 N Elston Ave
1765 N ELSTON AVE
| Office | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 889 tons
Highest 49%
|
Asbury Plaza Venture LLLP
750 N Dearborn St
| Multifamily Housing | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 2,479 tons
Highest 17%
|
Algonquin #6
1606 E Hyde Park Blvd
| Multifamily Housing | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 407 tons
Lowest 19%
|
Old Republic Building
301 - 317 N Michigan Ave
| Office | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 1,514 tons
Highest 31%
|
Academy of General Dentistry
560 - 566 W Lake St
| Office | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 775 tons
Lowest 45%
|
1747 W. Roosevelt
1747 W ROOSEVELT RD
| Office | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 1,070 tons
Highest 43%
|
260-Senior Suites of Bridgeport
2825 S HALSTED
| Senior Living Community | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 481 tons
Lowest 25%
|
CASL Senior Housing
2108 S PRINCETON AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 474 tons
Lowest 25%
|
5401 S HYDE PARK CONDOMINIUM
5401 S HYDE PARK BLVD
| Multifamily Housing | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 579 tons
Lowest 33%
|
701190 - 1000 West Fulton Market
1000 W Fulton St
| Office | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 3,855 tons
Highest 10%
|
332 Property LLC
332 S Michigan Ave
| Office | 6.9 kg/sqft
Highest 42%
| 3,656 tons
Highest 10%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data