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.) |
---|---|---|---|
Walmart Supercenter #5402
4650 W North Ave
| Wholesale Club/Supercenter | 12.8 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 1,808 tons
Lowest 42%
|
Hilton Chicago O'Hare Airport
10000 W O'Hare Dr
| Hotel | 12.8 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 6,605 tons
Highest 11%
|
Chicago Bar Association
321 S Plymouth Ct
| Office | 12.7 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 1,262 tons
Lowest 17%
|
#1976 Lincoln Park
🏆
2647 2679 N Halsted St
| Retail Store | 12.7 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 1,015 tons
#13 Lowest
|
McCormick Tribune Campus Center
📷
(Illinois Tech)
3201 S State Street
| College/University | 12.7 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 1,189 tons
Lowest 14%
|
340 E Superior Street
340 E Superior Street
| College/University | 12.7 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 2,382 tons
Highest 41%
|
Washington HS , George -CPS
3535 E 114th St
| K-12 School | 12.6 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 2,701 tons
Highest 35%
|
(ILCH1212) - Park Michigan [external]
1212 S Michigan Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 12.5 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 2,979 tons
Highest 31%
|
105 W MADISON ST
105 W MADISON ST
| Office | 12.5 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 1,749 tons
Lowest 41%
|
Harlem-Foster Shopping Center
7240 W Foster Ave
| Strip Mall | 12.5 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 3,425 tons
Highest 26%
|
618 S Michigan Ave
618 S Michigan Ave
| College/University | 12.4 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
| 1,130 tons
Lowest 9%
|
Hostelling International Chicago, The J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Hostel
24 E Congress Pkwy
| Hotel | 12.4 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
| 1,243 tons
Lowest 17%
|
Block 37
108 North State Street
| Enclosed Mall | 12.4 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
| 5,308 tons
Highest 14%
|
Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center
1250 W 119th St
| Fitness Center/Health Club/Gym | 12.4 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
| 1,966 tons
Lowest 47%
|
Home Federal
11 E Adams St
| Office | 12.4 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
| 1,997 tons
Lowest 48%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data