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) |
---|---|---|---|
Venetian Condominium Assoc.
222 232 W DIVISION ST
| Multifamily Housing | 5.0
Lowest 8%
| 1,124
Lowest 9%
|
5040 5060 N BROADWAY
5040 5060 N BROADWAY
| Multifamily Housing | 5.0
Lowest 8%
| 2,117
Highest 48%
|
Parc Huron
469 West Huron St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.0
Lowest 8%
| 1,777
Lowest 41%
|
Kenmore Plaza Tenant Association
5225 N Kenmore Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 5.0
Lowest 8%
| 1,342
Lowest 22%
|
727 W Madison St
727 W Madison St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.0
Lowest 8%
| 3,486
Highest 25%
|
Park Alexandria Condominium Association
125 S Jefferson St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.0
Lowest 8%
| 2,073
Lowest 50%
|
120 S LaSalle St
120 S LaSalle St
| Office | 5.0
Lowest 8%
| 3,773
Highest 23%
|
North Water Apartments & Loews Chicago Hotel
340 E North Water St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.0
Lowest 8%
| 4,316
Highest 19%
|
1550 CA
1550 N Lake Shore Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 5.0
Lowest 8%
| 1,814
Lowest 42%
|
Presidential Towers
🚩
555 W Madison St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.0
Lowest 8%
| 13,672 #47 Highest
|
2626 Lakeview Condominium
2626 N Lakeview Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 4.9
Lowest 7%
| 3,831
Highest 23%
|
Alta Roosevelt
801 S Financial Place
| Multifamily Housing | 4.9
Lowest 7%
| 3,074
Highest 30%
|
25 E Washington
25 E Washington St
| Office | 4.9
Lowest 7%
| 2,380
Highest 41%
|
1000 W Washington Blvd
1000 W Washington Blvd
| Multifamily Housing | 4.9
Lowest 7%
| 1,626
Lowest 34%
|
Pullman Wheelworks Apartments
901 E 104th St
| Multifamily Housing | 4.9
Lowest 7%
| 1,449
Lowest 27%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data