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.) |
---|---|---|---|
Salvation Army Freedom Center
825 N CHRISTIANA AVE
| Residence Hall/Dormitory | 10.4 kg/sqft
Highest 27%
| 1,916 tons
Lowest 45%
|
Atlas 2 E 8th St
2 E 8th St
| Multifamily Housing | 10.4 kg/sqft
Highest 27%
| 2,757 tons
Highest 34%
|
IL0054ZZ - Clark Fedral Bldg
536 S Clark St
| Office | 10.4 kg/sqft
Highest 27%
| 6,624 tons
Highest 11%
|
Regenstein Library
🏆
1100 E 57th St
| Library | 10.3 kg/sqft
Highest 27%
| 6,260 tons
Highest 12%
|
Manhattan Building
🏆
423 439 S DEARBORN ST
| Multifamily Housing | 10.3 kg/sqft
Highest 27%
| 1,252 tons
Lowest 17%
|
4700 S COTTAGE GROVE AVE
4700 S COTTAGE GROVE AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 10.3 kg/sqft
Highest 27%
| 2,075 tons
Highest 49%
|
Home Depot, #1912 North Ave
1232 W North Ave
| Retail Store | 10.3 kg/sqft
Highest 27%
| 1,724 tons
Lowest 39%
|
NortHigh School ide College Prep HS -CPS
5501 N Kedzie Ave
| K-12 School | 10.3 kg/sqft
Highest 27%
| 2,292 tons
Highest 43%
|
The Imperial of Lincoln Park
1366 W Fullerton Ave
| Senior Living Community | 10.3 kg/sqft
Highest 27%
| 1,937 tons
Lowest 46%
|
Chicago State University Campus
🚩
9501 S Martin Luther King Dr
| College/University | 10.3 kg/sqft
Highest 27%
| 12,026 tons
Highest 4%
|
Four40
🚩
440 S LaSalle St
| Office | 10.2 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 11,768 tons
Highest 5%
|
River North Point
🚩
350 N Orleans St
| Office | 10.2 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 19,305 tons #25 Highest
|
101 North Wacker
101 N Wacker Dr
| Office | 10.2 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 6,738 tons
Highest 10%
|
North Park University
5148 N KEDZIE AVE
| College/University | 10.2 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 1,155 tons
Lowest 11%
|
1850-1856 N Clark St
1850-1856 N Clark St
| Multifamily Housing | 10.2 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 1,958 tons
Lowest 47%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data