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Electrify Chicago

According to the 2022 Chicago Climate Action Plan(opens in a new tab), 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.

Chicago Buildings by Greenhouse Gas Intensity

Note: Data only includes large Chicago buildings from 2020

Note: This data only includes buildings whose emissions are reported under the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Ordinance(opens in a new tab). 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.)
8890
🚩
345 E Superior St
College/University
15.9 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
5,879 tons
Highest 6%
McGowan South
(DePaul)
1110 W Belden
College/University
15.8 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
2,022 tons
Highest 22%
Advocate Healthcare Center (Beverly Center)
9831 S Western Ave
Medical Office
15.5 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
919 tons
Highest 48%
Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
🚩
355 E ERIE ST
Hospital (General Medical & Surgical)
15.4 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
13,543 tons
#40 Highest
Sullivan Athletic Center
2323 N Sheffield Ave
College/University
15.4 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
980 tons
Highest 46%
Astoria Place Living and Rehab
6300 N CALIFORNIA AVE
Senior Living Community
15.4 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
796 tons
Lowest 46%
65 E Goethe
65 E GOETHE ST
Multifamily Housing
15.4 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
1,772 tons
Highest 27%
POLICE TRAINING ACADEMY
1300 W Jackson Blvd
Adult Education
15.3 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
2,762 tons
Highest 15%
Drexel - Avanath
6140 S DREXEL AVE
Multifamily Housing
15.2 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
1,234 tons
Highest 38%
Jeffery Plaza
2101 E 71ST ST
Supermarket/Grocery Store
15.2 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
1,726 tons
Highest 27%
Belhaven Nursing & Rehabilitation Center
11401 S OAKLEY AVE
Senior Living Community
15.2 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
1,058 tons
Highest 43%
311 City Services
2111 W Lexington St
Office
15.1 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
890 tons
Highest 49%
3400 N Lake Shore Drive
3400 N Lake Shore Dr
Multifamily Housing
15.0 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
878 tons
Lowest 50%
1201 W. Washington
1201 W Washington Blvd
Office
14.9 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
828 tons
Lowest 48%
The Peninsula Chicago
108 E Superior St
Hotel
14.9 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
6,103 tons
Highest 5%
Page 11 of 171 (Building #151 to #165)

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data (opens in a new tab)