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.
As of late January 2024, legislation is being introduced to require new buildings use more efficient forms of water and space heating, via the Clean And Affordable Buildings Ordinance (CABO), which will reduce the number of highly polluting and inefficient that end up on this site.
If you're in Chicago, write to your alderman to support the CABO!
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.) |
---|---|---|---|
5000 East End Condominium Association
5000 S East End Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 1,286 tons
Highest 36%
|
The 400 Condominium Association
🚩
400 E Randolph St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 6,155 tons
Highest 5%
|
3550 N Lake Shore Drive
3550 N Lake Shore Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 3,771 tons
Highest 10%
|
Marina Towers
📷
300 N State St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 4,261 tons
Highest 9%
|
5040-60 Marine Drive Condominium Association
5040-5060 N Marine
| Multifamily Housing | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 1,285 tons
Highest 36%
|
The Whitney Condominium Association
1301 N DEARBORN ST
| Multifamily Housing | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 1,258 tons
Highest 37%
|
The Scott Condominium Association
70 E SCOTT ST
| Multifamily Housing | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 446 tons
Lowest 22%
|
Hunter Properties, Inc. (1055 W. Catalpa Ave.)
1055 W CATALPA AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 374 tons
Lowest 15%
|
Gunnison Street Lofts Condo Assoc
4840 N BROADWAY
| Multifamily Housing | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 318 tons
Lowest 11%
|
Market Square Lofts Condominium Association
161 W HARRISON ST
| Multifamily Housing | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 927 tons
Highest 48%
|
Luxe on Madison ~ lx015
1214 1222 W MADISON ST
| Multifamily Housing | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 751 tons
Lowest 44%
|
73 East Elm Street Condominium Association
73 E ELM ST
| Multifamily Housing | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 535 tons
Lowest 30%
|
Thomas Kelly College Preparatory
(CPS)
4136 S California Ave
| K-12 School | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 1,631 tons
Highest 29%
|
Hope Institute Learning Academy
(CPS)
1628 W Washington Blvd
| K-12 School | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 1,438 tons
Highest 33%
|
Rosenwald Courts
4643 S Wabash
| Multifamily Housing | 5.5 kg/sqft
Lowest 32%
| 1,170 tons
Highest 39%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data