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.) |
---|---|---|---|
30 E. Division Condominium Association
30 E DIVISION ST
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 577 tons
Lowest 33%
|
111 South Wacker
🚩
111 S Wacker
| Office | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 9,937 tons
Highest 2%
|
350 North Orleans (Rivion LLC)
🚩
350 N Orleans St
| Office | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 15,074 tons #33 Highest
|
Nicholas Senn High School
5900 N Glenwood Ave
| K-12 School | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 2,336 tons
Highest 19%
|
29SA6-CHIGS-Sheraton Grand Chicago
301 E N Water St
| Hotel | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 9,224 tons
Highest 3%
|
Algonquin #2
1606 E 50TH PL
| Multifamily Housing | 8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 28%
| 472 tons
Lowest 24%
|
3755 at Oakwood Shores (Oakwood Shores 2C)
3753 3755 S Cottage Grove Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 7.9 kg/sqft
Highest 29%
| 579 tons
Lowest 33%
|
The Montrevelle Condominium Association
520 N Halsted St
| Multifamily Housing | 7.9 kg/sqft
Highest 29%
| 873 tons
Lowest 50%
|
Saieh Hall for Economics
(UChicago)
5757 S University Ave
| College/University | 7.9 kg/sqft
Highest 29%
| 1,217 tons
Highest 38%
|
Coleman Region 4 Offices
4655 S Dearborn St
| Office | 7.9 kg/sqft
Highest 29%
| 783 tons
Lowest 46%
|
Alessandro Volta Elementary School
4950 N Avers Ave
| K-12 School | 7.9 kg/sqft
Highest 29%
| 681 tons
Lowest 40%
|
Mary Gage Peterson Elementary School
5500 N CHRISTIANA
| K-12 School | 7.9 kg/sqft
Highest 29%
| 774 tons
Lowest 45%
|
John Foster Dulles Elementary School
6311 S Calumet Ave
| K-12 School | 7.9 kg/sqft
Highest 29%
| 561 tons
Lowest 32%
|
Pablo Casals Elementary School
3501 W Potomac Ave
| K-12 School | 7.9 kg/sqft
Highest 29%
| 525 tons
Lowest 29%
|
1111 S. Wabash Condominium Association
1111 S Wabash Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 7.9 kg/sqft
Highest 29%
| 3,172 tons
Highest 12%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data