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.
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) |
---|---|---|---|
8 S. Michigan Ave
8 S Michigan Ave
| Office | 8.2
Highest 43%
| 1,477
Lowest 28%
|
1120 N LaSalle Apartments
1120 N LaSalle St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.2
Highest 43%
| 1,672
Lowest 36%
|
Faulkner House Condominium Association
70 W Burton Pl
| Multifamily Housing | 8.2
Highest 43%
| 1,760
Lowest 41%
|
The Shoreham Apartments
400 E South Water St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.2
Highest 43%
| 3,515
Highest 25%
|
Grand Kingsbury LLC
520 N Kingsbury St
| Multifamily Housing | 8.2
Highest 43%
| 4,062
Highest 21%
|
200 S Wacker Property LLC
200 S Wacker Dr
| Office | 8.1
Highest 44%
| 6,838
Highest 10%
|
Drake Tower Apartments
179 E LAKESHORE DR
| Multifamily Housing | 8.1
Highest 44%
| 1,984
Lowest 48%
|
2061 N CAMPBELL AVE
2061 N CAMPBELL AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 8.1
Highest 44%
| 1,139
Lowest 10%
|
Realtor Building
430 N Michigan Ave
| Office | 8.1
Highest 44%
| 2,277
Highest 44%
|
209 W Jackson Blvd
209 W Jackson Blvd
| Office | 8.1
Highest 44%
| 1,336
Lowest 21%
|
920 W LAWRENCE AVE
920 W LAWRENCE AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 8.1
Highest 44%
| 1,204
Lowest 15%
|
Hyatt Place Chicago
28 N FRANKLIN ST
| Hotel | 8.1
Highest 44%
| 1,150
Lowest 11%
|
Chicago Cultural Center
78 E Washington St
| Other - Entertainment/Public Assembly | 8.1
Highest 44%
| 1,938
Lowest 46%
|
4900 N SHERIDAN RD
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4900 N SHERIDAN RD
| Multifamily Housing | 8.1
Highest 44%
| 1,023
#28 Lowest
|
180 N Michigan Ave
180 N Michigan Ave
| Office | 8.1
Highest 44%
| 1,868
Lowest 44%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data