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Electrify Chicago

According to the 2022 Chicago Climate Action Plan(opens in a new tab), 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.

Chicago Buildings by Greenhouse Gas Intensity

Note: Data only includes large Chicago buildings from 2020

Note: This data only includes buildings whose emissions are reported under the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Ordinance(opens in a new tab). 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.

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/sqft)
Total Greenhouse Emissions
(metric tons CO2)
Advocate Center
15 S Wood St
Other
18.0
Highest 10%
1,080
Lowest 6%
Galter Life Center
5157 N Francisco Ave
Outpatient Rehabilitation/Physical Therapy
17.8
Highest 11%
1,279
Lowest 18%
Chalet Living and Rehab
7350 7352 N SHERIDAN RD
Senior Living Community
17.7
Highest 11%
1,185
Lowest 14%
Jeffery Plaza
2101 E 71ST ST
Supermarket/Grocery Store
17.4
Highest 11%
1,972
Lowest 48%
Belhaven Nursing & Rehab Center
11401 S OAKLEY AVE
Senior Living Community
17.3
Highest 11%
1,206
Lowest 15%
Alden Lakeland Rehabilitation and Health Care Center
820 W LAWRENCE AVE
Senior Living Community
17.3
Highest 11%
1,550
Lowest 32%
East Bank Club
500 N Kingsbury St
Fitness Center/Health Club/Gym
17.3
Highest 11%
5,252
Highest 14%
Northwestern University Chicago Campus
710 N Lakeshore Dr
College/University
17.2
Highest 11%
4,055
Highest 21%
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
345 E Superior St
College/University
17.1
Highest 11%
6,349
Highest 12%
Warner Brothers
2650 W Bradley Pl
Office
17.0
Highest 11%
2,543
Highest 38%
NMH Arkes Family Pavilion
🚩
676 N St Clair St
Medical Office
16.8
Highest 11%
11,373
Highest 5%
Alden Estate of Northmoor
5831 N Northwest Hwy
Senior Living Community
16.8
Highest 11%
1,411
Lowest 24%
Glencrest Nursing & Rehab Center
2451 W Touhy Ave
Senior Care Community
16.7
Highest 11%
1,417
Lowest 25%
Thorek Memorial Hospital
850 W Irving Park Rd
Hospital (General Medical & Surgical)
16.6
Highest 12%
3,411
Highest 26%
St Bernard Hospital
326 West 64th St
Hospital (General Medical & Surgical)
16.6
Highest 12%
5,876
Highest 13%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data (opens in a new tab)