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.) |
---|---|---|---|
Regatta Condominium Association
420 E Waterside Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 7.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 38%
| 3,174 tons
Highest 28%
|
Asbury Plaza
750 N Dearborn St
| Multifamily Housing | 7.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 38%
| 2,512 tons
Highest 38%
|
00806-The Hallmark
2960 N Lake Shore Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 7.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 38%
| 3,075 tons
Highest 29%
|
The National
125 S Clark St
| Office | 7.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 38%
| 4,065 tons
Highest 21%
|
Skybridge CA
737 W Washington Blvd
| Multifamily Housing | 7.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 38%
| 5,731 tons
Highest 13%
|
Long Grove House
2001 S Michigan Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 7.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 38%
| 3,427 tons
Highest 26%
|
1380 E HYDE PARK BLVD
1380 E HYDE PARK BLVD
| Multifamily Housing | 6.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 36%
| 1,097 tons
Lowest 7%
|
The Morgan at Loyola Station
1209 W Arthur Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 6.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 36%
| 1,099 tons
Lowest 7%
|
Payton College Prep HS -CPS
1010 N Wells St
| K-12 School | 6.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 36%
| 1,498 tons
Lowest 29%
|
The Hudson
750 N HUDSON AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 6.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 36%
| 2,029 tons
Lowest 50%
|
Vivian Carter Apts
6401 S Yale Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 6.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 36%
| 1,039 tons
Lowest 3%
|
(IL510) - Emerald Condo
123 - 125 S Green St
| Multifamily Housing | 6.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 36%
| 1,742 tons
Lowest 40%
|
Lewis & O'Malley
25 E Jackson Blvd
| College/University | 6.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 36%
| 2,635 tons
Highest 36%
|
AMLI River North
71 W Hubbard St
| Multifamily Housing | 6.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 36%
| 3,121 tons
Highest 29%
|
Medical District Apartments
901 903 S Ashland Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 6.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 36%
| 2,358 tons
Highest 42%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data