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.) |
---|---|---|---|
La Casa Norte
3527 W North Avenue
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 409 tons
Lowest 19%
|
1323 W Morse
1323 W Morse Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 454 tons
Lowest 23%
|
Pritzker Science Center
3105 S Dearborn St
| College/University | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 994 tons
Highest 45%
|
Lakeview 3200
3218 N CLARK ST
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 1,085 tons
Highest 42%
|
333 N. Green
330 N Green St
| Office | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 4,443 tons
Highest 8%
|
Halas Recreation Center- ID# 254386
6458 N WINTHROP AVE
| College/University | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 976 tons
Highest 46%
|
Salvation Army - Divisional Headquarters (DHQ)
5040 N. Pulaski
| Office | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 606 tons
Lowest 35%
|
HRTL - Hollywood House: 5700 N Sheridan Rd
5700 N Sheridan Rd
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 1,201 tons
Highest 39%
|
Gary Comer Youth Center
7200 S Ingleside Ave
| Other | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 639 tons
Lowest 38%
|
The Granville Condominum Association
1134 W Granville Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 1,931 tons
Highest 24%
|
STEM Magnet Academy
1522 W Fillmore Blvd
| K-12 School | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 555 tons
Lowest 31%
|
Columbia Explorers Elementary Academy
4520 S Kedzie Ave
| K-12 School | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 721 tons
Lowest 42%
|
Garfield Park Office
2651 W Washington Blvd
| Office | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 578 tons
Lowest 33%
|
IBEW Local 134
2722 S King Dr
| Office | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 543 tons
Lowest 30%
|
Arts & Letters Hall
2315 N Kenmore Ave
| College/University | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 893 tons
Highest 49%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data