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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.)
Chicago Transit Authority - 120 N. Racine
120 N Racine Ave
Office
11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
1,383 tons
Highest 34%
Harper Center (Booth School)
(UChicago)
5807 S Woodlawn Ave
College/University
11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
4,604 tons
Highest 8%
60 W Erie Condo
60 W ERIE ST
Multifamily Housing
11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
760 tons
Lowest 45%
Alden Princeton Rehab & Health Care Center
255 W 69th St
Senior Living Community
10.9 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
871 tons
Lowest 50%
Collins Academy High School
(CPS)
1313 S Sacramento Blvd
K-12 School
10.9 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
2,243 tons
Highest 19%
4343 Clarendon Condominium
4343 N Clarendon Ave
Multifamily Housing
10.9 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
3,849 tons
Highest 10%
Lake Meadows 3
3420 S COTTAGE GROVE AVE
Multifamily Housing
10.9 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
1,172 tons
Highest 39%
Golden Mile Hotels
660 N State St
Hotel
10.9 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
1,297 tons
Highest 36%
00821-Brookdale Lake View
3101-3121 N Sheridan Rd
Multifamily Housing
10.9 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
2,248 tons
Highest 19%
2641 West Harrison
2641 W Harrison St
Other
10.9 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
609 tons
Lowest 35%
Archer Courts Apartments
(CHA)
2220 2242 S PRINCETON AVE
Multifamily Housing
10.9 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
1,505 tons
Highest 31%
Plumbers Local 130 UA
1340 W Washington Blvd
Office
10.8 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
550 tons
Lowest 31%
The Renaissance at Southshore
2425 E 71st St
Senior Living Community
10.8 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
876 tons
Lowest 50%
T.E. Brown Apartments
3601 3613 S WELLS ST
Multifamily Housing
10.8 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
941 tons
Highest 47%
1165 Property Owner, LLC
1165 N Clark St
Office
10.8 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
1,111 tons
Highest 41%
Page 21 of 171 (Building #301 to #315)

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