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