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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)
The Apartments at Lincoln Common
2345 N Lincoln Ave
Multifamily Housing
6.1
Lowest 21%
2,277
Highest 44%
East Point Condo Association
6101E N Sheridan Rd
Multifamily Housing
6.1
Lowest 21%
1,926
Lowest 46%
International House
🏆
1414 E 59th St
Residence Hall/Dormitory
6.1
Lowest 21%
1,457
Lowest 27%
1100 N Lake Shore Condominium Assn
1100 N LAKESHORE DR
Multifamily Housing
6.1
Lowest 21%
1,387
Lowest 24%
161 W HARRISON ST
161 W HARRISON ST
Multifamily Housing
6.1
Lowest 21%
1,029
Lowest 3%
Streeterville Center
233 E ERIE ST
Multifamily Housing
6.1
Lowest 21%
1,457
Lowest 27%
Prairie Ave Lofts
221 E Cullerton Ave
Multifamily Housing
6.1
Lowest 21%
1,108
Lowest 8%
Illinois College of Optometry
3241 S Michigan Ave
College/University
6.1
Lowest 21%
2,019
Lowest 49%
The Residences at 8 East Huron
8 E Huron St
Multifamily Housing
6.1
Lowest 21%
1,050
Lowest 4%
625 N Michigan Ave
625 N Michigan Ave
Office
6.1
Lowest 21%
2,176
Highest 46%
Minnie Ripperton Apts
4250 S Princeton Ave
Multifamily Housing
6.1
Lowest 21%
1,294
Lowest 19%
465 N Park Dr
465 N Park Dr
Multifamily Housing
6.1
Lowest 21%
3,268
Highest 28%
5040-60 N Marine Dr
5040-5060 N Marine
Multifamily Housing
6.1
Lowest 21%
1,431
Lowest 26%
3440 North Lakeshore Drive
3440 N Lake Shore Dr
Multifamily Housing
6.1
Lowest 21%
2,219
Highest 46%
Daley Center
14 E Jackson Blvd
College/University
6.1
Lowest 21%
2,273
Highest 44%

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