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.) |
---|---|---|---|
125 South Wacker
125 S Wacker Dr
| Office | 7.1 kg/sqft
Highest 39%
| 4,583 tons
Highest 8%
|
Leo Burnett Building
🚩
35 W Wacker Dr
| Office | 7.1 kg/sqft
Highest 39%
| 9,826 tons
Highest 3%
|
Addison & Clark (dd020)
1025 W Addison St
| Multifamily Housing | 7.0 kg/sqft
Highest 41%
| 1,823 tons
Highest 25%
|
Eight O Five (gh04)
805 N LA SALLE DR
| Multifamily Housing | 7.0 kg/sqft
Highest 41%
| 1,892 tons
Highest 24%
|
Lawndale Christian Health and Fitness Center
3750 W OGDEN AVE
| Mixed Use Property | 7.0 kg/sqft
Highest 41%
| 450 tons
Lowest 22%
|
Mercy Circle
3659 W 99TH ST
| Residential Care Facility | 7.0 kg/sqft
Highest 41%
| 1,028 tons
Highest 44%
|
Porta Coeli Residence
2260 E 99th St
| Multifamily Housing | 7.0 kg/sqft
Highest 41%
| 556 tons
Lowest 32%
|
Willow Square (Bldg. 1)
1728 N Damen Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 7.0 kg/sqft
Highest 41%
| 629 tons
Lowest 37%
|
A.N. Pritzker School
(CPS)
2009 W Schiller St
| K-12 School | 7.0 kg/sqft
Highest 41%
| 463 tons
Lowest 23%
|
Alfred Nobel Elementary School
(CPS)
4127 W Hirsch St
| K-12 School | 7.0 kg/sqft
Highest 41%
| 533 tons
Lowest 29%
|
Julia Ward Howe Elementary School of Excellence
(CPS)
720 N Lorel Ave
| K-12 School | 7.0 kg/sqft
Highest 41%
| 484 tons
Lowest 26%
|
Franklin Elementary Fine Arts Center
(CPS)
225 W Evergreen Ave
| K-12 School | 7.0 kg/sqft
Highest 41%
| 371 tons
Lowest 15%
|
142 East Ontario
142 E Ontario St
| Office | 7.0 kg/sqft
Highest 41%
| 989 tons
Highest 46%
|
2400 Lakeview Condo
2400 N Lakeview Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 7.0 kg/sqft
Highest 41%
| 2,058 tons
Highest 22%
|
The 3600 Condominium Association
🚩
3600 N Lake Shore Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 7.0 kg/sqft
Highest 41%
| 5,446 tons
Highest 6%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data