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 βAs of 2016, this list includes all commercial, institutional, and residential buildings larger than 50,000 square feet.β 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) |
---|---|---|---|
Oakley Square Apartments
2325 W JACKSON BLVD
| Multifamily Housing | 4.3
Lowest 3%
| 1,203
Lowest 15%
|
Optima Signature Apartments
220 E Illinois St
| Multifamily Housing | 4.3
Lowest 3%
| 3,753
Highest 23%
|
The Darien Apartments
3100 N Lake Shore Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 4.3
Lowest 3%
| 1,504
Lowest 30%
|
Randolph Place Residences Condominium Association
165 N Canal St
| Multifamily Housing | 4.3
Lowest 3%
| 3,187
Highest 28%
|
Smith Senior Living
2320 W 113TH PL
| Senior Living Community | 4.2
Lowest 3%
| 1,557
Lowest 32%
|
Steinmetz Academic Center HS -CPS
3030 N Mobile Ave
| K-12 School | 4.2
Lowest 3%
| 1,692
Lowest 37%
|
Lane Tech HS -CPS
2501 W Addison St
| K-12 School | 4.2
Lowest 3%
| 2,977
Highest 31%
|
3224 3244 N HALSTED ST
3224 3244 N HALSTED ST
| Multifamily Housing | 4.1
Lowest 3%
| 1,112
Lowest 8%
|
River North Commons CA
520 W Huron St
| Multifamily Housing | 4.1
Lowest 3%
| 1,152
Lowest 11%
|
Eddystone Condominium Homes
π
415 421 W MELROSE ST
| Multifamily Housing | 4.1
Lowest 3%
| 1,009
#10 Lowest
|
Hanover House
π
11 21 W GOETHE ST
| Multifamily Housing | 4.0
#29 Lowest
| 1,008
#7 Lowest
|
Kelly HS -CPS
π
4136 S California Ave
| K-12 School | 4.0
#29 Lowest
| 1,206
Lowest 15%
|
Lincoln Park 2550 Condominium Association
π
2550 N Lakeview Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 4.0
#29 Lowest
| 3,969
Highest 22%
|
Chicago Vocational Career Academy -CPS
π
2106 E 87th St
| K-12 School | 4.0
#29 Lowest
| 2,718
Highest 34%
|
Ontario Street Lofts CA
π
411 W Ontario St
| Multifamily Housing | 3.9
#24 Lowest
| 1,023
#27 Lowest
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data