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.) |
---|---|---|---|
830 N Michigan Ave
830 N Michigan Ave
| Office | 7.8 kg/sqft
Highest 30%
| 980 tons
Highest 46%
|
2120 Lincoln Park West
2120 N LINCOLN PARK WEST
| Multifamily Housing | 7.8 kg/sqft
Highest 30%
| 322 tons
Lowest 11%
|
Presidents Plaza 1
8600 W Bryn Mawr Ave
| Office | 7.8 kg/sqft
Highest 30%
| 3,260 tons
Highest 12%
|
METROPOLITIAN PIER AND EXPOSITION AUTHORITY
🚨
📷
301 Cermak Rd
| Convention Center | 7.8 kg/sqft
Highest 30%
| 72,303 tons #3 Highest
|
American Red Cross Greater Chicago
2200 W. Harrison St.
| Office | 7.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 480 tons
Lowest 25%
|
Oakdale Terrace
525 W Oakdale Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 7.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 466 tons
Lowest 24%
|
Maple Court Apartments
1120 1126 E 47th St
| Multifamily Housing | 7.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 392 tons
Lowest 17%
|
CICS Ralph Ellison
1817 W 80th St
| K-12 School | 7.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 531 tons
Lowest 29%
|
Stephen T Mather High School
(CPS)
5835 N Lincoln Ave
| K-12 School | 7.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 1,424 tons
Highest 33%
|
Helen Peirce International Studies ES
(CPS)
1423 W Bryn Mawr Ave
| K-12 School | 7.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 1,030 tons
Highest 44%
|
West Park Elementary Academy
(CPS)
1425 N Tripp Ave
| K-12 School | 7.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 626 tons
Lowest 37%
|
Wolfgang A Mozart Elementary School
(CPS)
2200 N Hamlin Ave
| K-12 School | 7.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 709 tons
Lowest 42%
|
Jacqueline B Vaughn Occupational High School
(CPS)
4355 N Linder Ave
| K-12 School | 7.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 385 tons
Lowest 16%
|
Andrew Carnegie Elementary School
(CPS)
1414 E 61st Pl
| K-12 School | 7.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 494 tons
Lowest 26%
|
Lincoln Park Tower Condominium Association
1960 N Lincoln Park West
| Multifamily Housing | 7.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 2,580 tons
Highest 16%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data