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.) |
---|---|---|---|
Printers Row Condominium Association
711 S DEARBORN ST
| Multifamily Housing | 5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 9%
| 1,151 tons
Lowest 11%
|
Kenwood Acad HS -CPS
5015 S Blackstone Ave
| K-12 School | 5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 9%
| 1,397 tons
Lowest 24%
|
Marist HS
4200 W 115th St
| K-12 School | 5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 9%
| 1,236 tons
Lowest 16%
|
1660 N LaSalle CA
1660 N LaSalle St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 9%
| 2,446 tons
Highest 39%
|
Lindblom College Prep -CPS
6130 S Wolcott Ave
| K-12 School | 5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 9%
| 1,545 tons
Lowest 31%
|
500 Lake Shore Drive
500 N Lake Shore Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 9%
| 3,649 tons
Highest 24%
|
3750 North Lakeshore Drive
3750 N Lake Shore Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 9%
| 2,011 tons
Lowest 49%
|
Tower Residences Condominium Association
1235 S Prairie Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 9%
| 3,062 tons
Highest 30%
|
One East Wacker
1 E Wacker Dr
| Office | 5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 9%
| 3,523 tons
Highest 25%
|
University Park Condominium Association
🏆
1451 E 55th St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 9%
| 2,776 tons
Highest 34%
|
Merchandise Mart
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📷
222 Merchandise Mart Plz
| Office | 5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 9%
| 20,933 tons #17 Highest
|
The State Parkway CA
1445 N State Pkwy
| Multifamily Housing | 5.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 8%
| 1,429 tons
Lowest 25%
|
Appleville Condominium
501 W 24th Pl
| Multifamily Housing | 5.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 8%
| 1,294 tons
Lowest 19%
|
1125 W Loyola Ave
1125 W Loyola Ave
| Residence Hall/Dormitory | 5.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 8%
| 1,289 tons
Lowest 19%
|
828 W GRACE ST
828 W GRACE ST
| Multifamily Housing | 5.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 8%
| 1,104 tons
Lowest 8%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data