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.) |
---|---|---|---|
259 E Erie St
259 E Erie St
| Medical Office | 13.9 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 9,626 tons
Highest 7%
|
600 W Chicago
🚨
600 W Chicago
| Office | 13.8 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 29,599 tons #9 Highest
|
908 920 W ARGYLE ST
908 920 W ARGYLE ST
| Senior Living Community | 13.7 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 2,011 tons
Lowest 49%
|
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
1100 E 55TH ST
| College/University | 13.7 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 1,644 tons
Lowest 35%
|
Southpoint Nursing and Rehabilitation Center
1010 W 95TH ST
| Senior Living Community | 13.6 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 1,098 tons
Lowest 7%
|
Moody Bible Institute, Crowell Hall
820 N LaSalle St
| College/University | 13.6 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 1,402 tons
Lowest 24%
|
City Hall
121 N LaSalle St
| Office | 13.5 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 5,547 tons
Highest 13%
|
Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center
🚩
836 W Wellington Ave
| Hospital (General Medical & Surgical) | 13.5 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 17,649 tons #32 Highest
|
Logan Arts Center
915 E 60th St
| Performing Arts | 13.4 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 2,537 tons
Highest 38%
|
540 W Madison Ave
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540 W Madison
| Financial Office | 13.4 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 16,431 tons #35 Highest
|
Beth Anne Extended Living
1143-53 N Lavergne
| Multifamily Housing | 13.4 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 1,073 tons
Lowest 5%
|
SpringHill Suites Chicago O'Hare / Hampton Inn and Suites Chicago
8101 W Higgins Rd
| Hotel | 13.4 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 2,140 tons
Highest 47%
|
Union League Club Of Chicago
65 W Jackson Blvd
| Hotel | 13.4 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 4,171 tons
Highest 20%
|
500 W Monroe
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500 W Monroe
| Office | 13.3 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 15,317 tons #40 Highest
|
F.H. Paschen, S.N. Nielsen & Associates, LLC
8734 W Catalpa
| Office | 13.3 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
| 1,501 tons
Lowest 29%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data