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.) |
---|---|---|---|
1133 N. Dearborn Apartments
1133 N Dearborn St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 16%
| 2,233 tons
Highest 46%
|
30 W OAK ST
🏆
30 W OAK ST
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 16%
| 1,048 tons
Lowest 4%
|
850 Dewitt Place Condominiums
850 N Dewitt Pl
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 16%
| 1,514 tons
Lowest 30%
|
One East Delaware
1 E Delaware Pl
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 16%
| 2,932 tons
Highest 32%
|
Left Bank at K Station
300 N Canal Street
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 16%
| 2,643 tons
Highest 36%
|
3550 N Lake Shore Drive
3550 N Lake Shore Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 16%
| 3,937 tons
Highest 22%
|
IL0000FC - Chicago Federal Ctr
🚩
219 S Dearborn
| Mixed Use Property | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 16%
| 18,413 tons #29 Highest
|
623 S Wabash Ave
623 S Wabash Ave
| College/University | 5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 15%
| 1,172 tons
Lowest 13%
|
Continental Plaza Apartments
1330 1358 W 76th St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 15%
| 1,158 tons
Lowest 11%
|
Xavier Apartments
625 W Division St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 15%
| 1,316 tons
Lowest 20%
|
John T. Richardson Library
2350 N Kenmore Ave
| College/University | 5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 15%
| 1,066 tons
Lowest 5%
|
The Madison at Racine/1200 Madison Racine LLC
1164 W Madison
| Multifamily Housing | 5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 15%
| 1,435 tons
Lowest 26%
|
GRAND ORLEANS CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION
330 W Grand Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 15%
| 1,192 tons
Lowest 14%
|
100 W Chestnut
100 W Chestnut St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 15%
| 1,667 tons
Lowest 36%
|
3410 3412 N LAKE SHORE DR
3410 3412 N LAKE SHORE DR
| Multifamily Housing | 5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 15%
| 1,092 tons
Lowest 6%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data