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.) |
---|---|---|---|
311 S Wacker
🚩
311 S Wacker
| Office | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 10,757 tons
Highest 5%
|
Illinois Masonic Medical Office Center
3000 N HALSTED ST
| Medical Office | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 1,075 tons
Lowest 5%
|
142 E Ontario St
142 E Ontario St
| Office | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 1,056 tons
Lowest 4%
|
Presidents Plaza 2
🏆
8700 W Bryn Mawr Ave
| Office | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 3,323 tons
Highest 27%
|
The Bristol Condominium Association
57 E Delaware Pl
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 3,657 tons
Highest 24%
|
1250 N Dearborn Condominium Association
1250 N DEARBORN ST
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 1,105 tons
Lowest 8%
|
65 E SCOTT ST
65 E SCOTT ST
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 1,629 tons
Lowest 35%
|
765 W Adams St
765 W Adams St
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 2,627 tons
Highest 36%
|
Chicago Temple Building
77 W Washington
| Office | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 1,795 tons
Lowest 42%
|
4600 N CLARENDON AVE
🏆
4600 N CLARENDON AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 1,020 tons
#23 Lowest
|
Chicago Triplex
515 N Clark St
| Hotel | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 2,580 tons
Highest 37%
|
William Castleman Apartments
🏆
4945 N Sheridan Rd
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 1,118 tons
Lowest 8%
|
600 N Fairbanks Condo Association
600 N Fairbanks Ct
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 2,863 tons
Highest 33%
|
300 South Wacker Property LLC
300 S Wacker Dr
| Office | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 4,487 tons
Highest 19%
|
Museum Tower Residences Condo Association
1335 S Prairie Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 7.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 46%
| 2,707 tons
Highest 35%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data