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.) |
---|---|---|---|
61 E Banks
61 E Banks Street
| Multifamily Housing | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 1,137 tons
Highest 40%
|
Niche 905
905 N Orleans St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 1,520 tons
Highest 31%
|
Center Home For Hispanic Elderly
1401 N California Ave
| Senior Living Community | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 637 tons
Lowest 38%
|
William P Gray Elementary School
3730 N Laramie Ave
| K-12 School | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 1,102 tons
Highest 42%
|
Mildred I Lavizzo Elementary School
137 W 108th Pl
| K-12 School | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 710 tons
Lowest 42%
|
University of Chicago - Donoghue
707 E 37th St
| K-12 School | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 639 tons
Lowest 38%
|
Lathrop 1A
2000 W Diversey Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 3,154 tons
Highest 13%
|
840 Lake Shore Condominium Association
840 N Lake Shore Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 2,359 tons
Highest 18%
|
3838 North Broadway, LLC
3838 N BROADWAY
| Multifamily Housing | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 601 tons
Lowest 35%
|
50 East Chestnut Condominium Association
50 E Chestnut St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 1,176 tons
Highest 39%
|
Cloisters
5801 5811 S DORCHESTER AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 1,624 tons
Highest 29%
|
180 North Jefferson Apartments
180 N Jefferson St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 1,940 tons
Highest 24%
|
Armitage Commons
3720 W ARMITAGE AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 728 tons
Lowest 43%
|
Skiritai Bittersweet LLC
732 W BITTERSWEET PL
| Multifamily Housing | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 466 tons
Lowest 24%
|
4180 Polo Tower CA
4180 N MARINE DR
| Multifamily Housing | 8.5 kg/sqft
Highest 23%
| 926 tons
Highest 48%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data