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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 CO2 equivalent.

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 eq./sqft)
Total Greenhouse Emissions
(metric tons CO2 eq.)
201 E Chestnut St
201 E Chestnut St
Multifamily Housing
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
1,603 tons
Lowest 34%
4239 N OAKPARK AVE
4239 N OAKPARK AVE
Senior Living Community
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
1,030 tons
Lowest 3%
Fulton West
1330 W. Fulton
Office
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
2,465 tons
Highest 39%
Home Depot, #1903 Brickyard
2555 N Normandy Ave
Retail Store
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
1,331 tons
Lowest 21%
100 N LaSalle
100 N LaSalle St
Office
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
1,280 tons
Lowest 18%
Metropolis Condominium Association
8 W Monroe St
Multifamily Housing
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
1,752 tons
Lowest 41%
1230 N STATE PKWY
1230 N STATE PKWY
Multifamily Housing
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
1,162 tons
Lowest 12%
Morningside Court
1250 W Morse Ave
Multifamily Housing
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
1,106 tons
Lowest 8%
Atwater Apartments
355 E Ohio St
Multifamily Housing
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
4,562 tons
Highest 18%
Carver Middle -CPS
801 E 133rd Pl
K-12 School
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
1,163 tons
Lowest 12%
Wabash Building
425 S Wabash Ave
Residence Hall/Dormitory
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
3,335 tons
Highest 27%
The Residences of 41 E. 8th Street
41 E 8th St
Multifamily Housing
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
2,380 tons
Highest 41%
Walton on the Park South
2 W Delaware Pl
Multifamily Housing
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
2,980 tons
Highest 31%
820 W Belle Plaine Apartments
820 W Belle Plaine Ave
Multifamily Housing
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
1,893 tons
Lowest 45%
Sterling Private Residences
345 N LaSalle St
Multifamily Housing
8.0 kg/sqft
Highest 46%
4,039 tons
Highest 21%

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