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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.

Legislative update! 🎉

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! (opens in a new tab)

Chicago Buildings by Greenhouse Gas Intensity

Note: Data only includes large Chicago buildings from 2021, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

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 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.)
2335 N. Commonwealth
🏆
2333 2341 N COMMONWEALTH AVE
Multifamily Housing
5.2 kg/sqft
Lowest 27%
465 tons
Lowest 24%
3410 Lakeshore Drive Condominium Association
3410 3412 N LAKE SHORE DR
Multifamily Housing
5.2 kg/sqft
Lowest 27%
1,005 tons
Highest 45%
Surf III LLC
426 W SURF ST
Multifamily Housing
5.2 kg/sqft
Lowest 27%
468 tons
Lowest 24%
Stein Place
5825 S DORCHESTER AVE
Multifamily Housing
5.2 kg/sqft
Lowest 27%
423 tons
Lowest 20%
2800 Lake Shore Drive Condo Association (102232)
2800 N Lake Shore Dr
Multifamily Housing
5.2 kg/sqft
Lowest 27%
3,906 tons
Highest 10%
Marist High School
4200 W 115th St
K-12 School
5.2 kg/sqft
Lowest 27%
1,252 tons
Highest 37%
Aspire Residences
2111 S Wabash Ave
Multifamily Housing
5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 25%
1,404 tons
Highest 33%
Alta Grand Central (lt027)
221 W Harrison St
Multifamily Housing
5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 25%
1,198 tons
Highest 39%
1143 S Plymouth Court
1143 S Plymouth Court
Multifamily Housing
5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 25%
697 tons
Lowest 41%
1727 S Indiana
1727 S Indiana Ave
Multifamily Housing
5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 25%
895 tons
Highest 49%
Haberdasher Square Lofts
728 W Jackson Blvd
Multifamily Housing
5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 25%
2,156 tons
Highest 21%
Cuneo Hall-ID# 254160
6430 N Kenmore Ave
Office
5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 25%
272 tons
Lowest 7%
Drexel Towers 4917
4917 S Drexel Blvd
Multifamily Housing
5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 25%
366 tons
Lowest 14%
Loews Chicago Hotel & Residential
340 E North Water St
Multifamily Housing
5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 25%
4,357 tons
Highest 8%
Archer Place Condominium Association
2272 S Archer Ave
Multifamily Housing
5.1 kg/sqft
Lowest 25%
356 tons
Lowest 13%
Page 127 of 171 (Building #1891 to #1905)

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