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.
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 2020, 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.) |
---|---|---|---|
The Private Residences at Ontario Place, a Condominium
10 E Ontario St
| Multifamily Housing | 12.2 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 5,972 tons
Highest 5%
|
Hyde Park Tower (hy000)
5140 S Hyde Park Blvd
| Multifamily Housing | 12.2 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 1,753 tons
Highest 27%
|
South Loop Apartments
1521 S WABASH AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 12.2 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 759 tons
Lowest 45%
|
131 S. Dearborn 3
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131 S Dearborn
| Office | 12.2 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 20,116 tons #15 Highest
|
Ambassador Nursing & Rehabilitation Center
4900 N Bernard
| Senior Living Community | 12.1 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
| 693 tons
Lowest 41%
|
Trinity Hospital Physicians Office Building (Formerly Advocate Trinity - POB)
2301 2315 E 93rd St
| Medical Office | 12.1 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
| 625 tons
Lowest 37%
|
Northside College Preparatory High School
5501 N Kedzie Ave
| K-12 School | 12.1 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
| 2,685 tons
Highest 15%
|
Ascension St Elizabeth Professional Office Building
1431 N Western Ave
| Medical Office | 12.1 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
| 860 tons
Lowest 49%
|
Lake Meadows 5
3445 S RHODES AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 12.1 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
| 1,297 tons
Highest 36%
|
1340 S Damen Avenue
1340 S Damen Ave
| Office | 12.1 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
| 1,935 tons
Highest 24%
|
The Hoxton
200 N Green St
| Hotel | 12.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
| 1,833 tons
Highest 25%
|
Garfield Center
10 S Kedzie Ave
| Office | 12.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
| 751 tons
Lowest 44%
|
Peerless Building
200 210 S HALSTED ST
| Office | 12.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
| 1,385 tons
Highest 34%
|
Millennium Park Plaza
151 - 155 N Michigan Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 12.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
| 7,350 tons
Highest 4%
|
Union League Club Of Chicago
65 W Jackson Blvd
| Hotel | 12.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
| 3,728 tons
Highest 10%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data