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.) |
---|---|---|---|
1914 - DAN RYAN
200 W 87th St
| Retail Store | 9.5 kg/sqft
Highest 17%
| 988 tons
Highest 46%
|
Courthouse Place
46 64 W Hubbard St
| Office | 9.5 kg/sqft
Highest 17%
| 1,021 tons
Highest 44%
|
Cook County Department of Corrections Campus
🚨
2700 S California Ave
| Prison/Incarceration | 9.5 kg/sqft
Highest 17%
| 43,342 tons #5 Highest
|
The John Hancock Center
🚨
📷
875 N Michigan Ave
| Mixed Use Property | 9.5 kg/sqft
Highest 17%
| 21,668 tons #11 Highest
|
Daniel J Corkery Elementary School
2510 S Kildare Ave
| K-12 School | 9.4 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 671 tons
Lowest 40%
|
Quadrangle House
6700 S Shore Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 9.4 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 2,071 tons
Highest 22%
|
The Duncan
1515 W Monroe St
| Multifamily Housing | 9.4 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 1,210 tons
Highest 38%
|
The Drake, IL-SV
🚩
140 E Walton Pl
| Hotel | 9.4 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 6,066 tons
Highest 5%
|
Saint Vincent Center
721 N Lasalle St
| Office | 9.4 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 891 tons
Highest 49%
|
1903 - BRICKYARD
2555 N Normandy Ave
| Retail Store | 9.4 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 1,293 tons
Highest 36%
|
Goethe Astor Inc
1301 1307 N ASTOR ST
| Multifamily Housing | 9.4 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 463 tons
Lowest 24%
|
SV Care (Southview Manor, Inc.)
3311 S Michigan Ave
| Senior Living Community | 9.3 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 512 tons
Lowest 28%
|
Levi Hall
5801 S Ellis Ave
| Office | 9.3 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 842 tons
Lowest 48%
|
600 S Michigan
600 S Michigan Ave
| College/University | 9.3 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 1,635 tons
Highest 29%
|
Andrew Jackson Elementary Language Academy
1340 W Harrison St
| K-12 School | 9.3 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
| 689 tons
Lowest 41%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data