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.) |
---|---|---|---|
David Rubenstein Forum
1201 E 60TH ST
| Convention Center | 11.3 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 1,102 tons
Highest 42%
|
5141 N Christiana Ave.
5141 N Christiana Ave
| College/University | 11.3 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 1,143 tons
Highest 40%
|
HHCS ICRC
3500 S GILES AVE
| Residential Care Facility | 11.3 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 797 tons
Lowest 46%
|
Harlem-Foster Shopping Center
7240 W Foster Ave
| Strip Mall | 11.3 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 3,104 tons
Highest 13%
|
Crerar Library
(UChicago)
5730 S Ellis Ave
| Library | 11.2 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 1,881 tons
Highest 24%
|
McCabe Hall
900 W Belden Ave
| College/University | 11.2 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 656 tons
Lowest 39%
|
NBC Tower
🚩
455 N Cityfront Plaza Dr
| Office | 11.2 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 10,498 tons
Highest 2%
|
Gunsaulus Hall
3140 S Michigan Avenue
| Residence Hall/Dormitory | 11.1 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
| 924 tons
Highest 48%
|
180 North Wabash LLC
180 N Wabash Ave
| Office | 11.1 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
| 1,806 tons
Highest 26%
|
F.H. Paschen, S.N. Nielsen & Associates, LLC
8734 W Catalpa
| Office | 11.1 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
| 1,253 tons
Highest 37%
|
Lake Meadows 4
3440 S COTTAGE GROVE AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 11.1 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
| 1,195 tons
Highest 39%
|
St. Bernard Ambulatory Care Center
6307 S STEWART AVE
| Medical Office | 11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
| 735 tons
Lowest 43%
|
280 Building
280 S Columbus Dr
| College/University | 11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
| 1,561 tons
Highest 30%
|
HI Chicago
24 E Congress Pkwy
| Hotel | 11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
| 1,104 tons
Highest 41%
|
Lake Meadows 6
500 E 33rd St
| Multifamily Housing | 11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
| 3,332 tons
Highest 11%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data