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 2021, 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.) |
---|---|---|---|
6244-46 S King Drive
6244 S KING DR
| Multifamily Housing | 4.4 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
| 437 tons
Lowest 21%
|
Signature Residences Condominium Association
201 211 E 31ST ST
| Multifamily Housing | 4.4 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
| 227 tons
Lowest 4%
|
740 N. Milwaukee, LLC
740 N MILWAUKEE AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 4.4 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
| 367 tons
Lowest 15%
|
Chicago Metropolitan Housing Development Corporation
5152 5178 S KING DR
| Multifamily Housing | 4.4 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
| 258 tons
Lowest 6%
|
Oakley Square (St. Stephen's Terrace)
2325 W JACKSON BLVD
| Multifamily Housing | 4.4 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
| 1,223 tons
Highest 38%
|
South Chicago Senior Housing
3039 E 91ST ST
| Multifamily Housing | 4.4 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
| 617 tons
Lowest 36%
|
Theodore Roosevelt High School
3436 W Wilson Ave
| K-12 School | 4.4 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
| 1,418 tons
Highest 33%
|
950 W. Huron Condominium Association
950 W HURON ST
| Multifamily Housing | 4.4 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
| 343 tons
Lowest 13%
|
833 West Jackson
833 W Jackson Blvd
| Office | 4.4 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
| 297 tons
Lowest 9%
|
1033 W Loyola (wy73)
1025 1035 W LOYOLA AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 4.4 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
| 405 tons
Lowest 18%
|
3161 Cambridge
3161 N CAMBRIDGE AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 4.4 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
| 225 tons
Lowest 4%
|
200 West Adams St.
200 W Adams St
| Office | 4.4 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
| 3,493 tons
Highest 11%
|
Magnolia Gardens, LLC
4845 4859 N MAGNOLIA AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 4.4 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
| 224 tons
Lowest 4%
|
5222 S Drexel
5222 5238 S DREXEL AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 13%
| 391 tons
Lowest 17%
|
Hale Lofts
14 N Peoria Street
| Multifamily Housing | 4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 13%
| 475 tons
Lowest 25%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data