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 Rookery Building
209 S LaSalle St
| Office | 8.9 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 2,998 tons
Highest 31%
|
1110 N Lake Shore Drive Apartments
1110 N Lake Shore Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 8.9 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 1,848 tons
Lowest 43%
|
8647 W Higgins Road
8647 W Higgins Road
| Office | 8.9 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 1,329 tons
Lowest 21%
|
Renee Granville-Grossman Residential Commons
(UChicago)
6031 S Ellis Ave
| Residence Hall/Dormitory | 8.9 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 3,017 tons
Highest 30%
|
400 East Ohio Condominium Association
400 E Ohio St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.9 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 2,530 tons
Highest 38%
|
Niche 905
905 N Orleans St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.9 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 1,581 tons
Lowest 33%
|
The Granville Condominum Association
1134 W Granville Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 8.9 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 2,136 tons
Highest 47%
|
122 Property LLC
122 S Michigan Ave
| Office | 8.9 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 4,548 tons
Highest 18%
|
Presidents Plaza 1
🏆
8600 W Bryn Mawr Ave
| Office | 8.8 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 3,668 tons
Highest 24%
|
280 S Columbus Dr
280 S Columbus Dr
| College/University | 8.8 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 1,252 tons
Lowest 17%
|
Halsted Flats
3740 N Halsted St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.8 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 2,015 tons
Lowest 49%
|
210 N Wells St
210 N Wells St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.8 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 3,399 tons
Highest 26%
|
Catalpa Gardens Condominium Association
1122 W Catalpa Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 8.8 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 1,438 tons
Lowest 26%
|
Atrium Village
303 W Division St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.8 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 1,266 tons
Lowest 18%
|
Symphony Center
220 S Michigan Ave
| Performing Arts | 8.8 kg/sqft
Highest 37%
| 2,593 tons
Highest 37%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data