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 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.) |
---|---|---|---|
Allegro Hotel and Palace Theater
151 171 W Randolph St
| Hotel | 9.8 kg/sqft
Highest 30%
| 3,739 tons
Highest 23%
|
AMA Plaza
🚩
330 N Wabash Av
| Office | 9.8 kg/sqft
Highest 30%
| 18,347 tons #30 Highest
|
The John Hancock Center
🚩
📷
875 N Michigan Ave
| Mixed Use Property | 9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 22,228 tons #14 Highest
|
300 S DAMEN AVE
300 S DAMEN AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 1,664 tons
Lowest 36%
|
S2-Sinai; Schwab Rehab Institute
1401 S California Ave
| Hospital (General Medical & Surgical) | 9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 1,722 tons
Lowest 39%
|
Cobbler Square Lofts
1350 N Wells St
| Multifamily Housing | 9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 1,373 tons
Lowest 23%
|
Home Depot
🏆
200 W 87th St
| Retail Store | 9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 1,009 tons
#9 Lowest
|
MDA City Apartments
63 E Lake St
| Multifamily Housing | 9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 1,704 tons
Lowest 38%
|
Montgomery on Superior Condominium Association
500 W Superior St
| Multifamily Housing | 9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 3,922 tons
Highest 22%
|
900 North Michigan
🚩
900 North Michigan
| Mixed Use Property | 9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 20,806 tons #21 Highest
|
Graham School of Management, St. Xavier University
3700 W 103rd St
| College/University | 9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 4,544 tons
Highest 18%
|
Eugenie Terrace
🚩
1730 N Clark St
| Multifamily Housing | 9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
| 6,048 tons
Highest 12%
|
8501 W Higgins Rd
8501 W Higgins Rd
| Office | 9.6 kg/sqft
Highest 32%
| 1,588 tons
Lowest 34%
|
820 S Michigan Ave
🏆
820 S Michigan Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 9.6 kg/sqft
Highest 32%
| 1,079 tons
Lowest 6%
|
190 S LaSalle St
190 S LaSalle St
| Office | 9.6 kg/sqft
Highest 32%
| 8,454 tons
Highest 8%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data