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.) |
---|---|---|---|
Advocate Center
15 S Wood St
| Other | 18.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
| 1,080 tons
Lowest 6%
|
Galter Life Center
5157 N Francisco Ave
| Outpatient Rehabilitation/Physical Therapy | 17.8 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 1,279 tons
Lowest 18%
|
Chalet Living and Rehab
7350 7352 N SHERIDAN RD
| Senior Living Community | 17.7 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 1,185 tons
Lowest 14%
|
Jeffery Plaza
2101 E 71ST ST
| Supermarket/Grocery Store | 17.4 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 1,972 tons
Lowest 48%
|
Belhaven Nursing & Rehab Center
11401 S OAKLEY AVE
| Senior Living Community | 17.3 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 1,206 tons
Lowest 15%
|
Alden Lakeland Rehabilitation and Health Care Center
820 W LAWRENCE AVE
| Senior Living Community | 17.3 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 1,550 tons
Lowest 32%
|
East Bank Club
500 N Kingsbury St
| Fitness Center/Health Club/Gym | 17.3 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 5,252 tons
Highest 14%
|
Northwestern University Chicago Campus
(Northwestern)
710 N Lakeshore Dr
| College/University | 17.2 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 4,055 tons
Highest 21%
|
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
345 E Superior St
| College/University | 17.1 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 6,349 tons
Highest 12%
|
Warner Brothers
2650 W Bradley Pl
| Office | 17.0 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 2,543 tons
Highest 38%
|
NMH Arkes Family Pavilion
🚩
676 N St Clair St
| Medical Office | 16.8 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 11,373 tons
Highest 5%
|
Alden Estate of Northmoor
5831 N Northwest Hwy
| Senior Living Community | 16.8 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 1,411 tons
Lowest 24%
|
Glencrest Nursing & Rehab Center
2451 W Touhy Ave
| Senior Care Community | 16.7 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
| 1,417 tons
Lowest 25%
|
Thorek Memorial Hospital
850 W Irving Park Rd
| Hospital (General Medical & Surgical) | 16.6 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
| 3,411 tons
Highest 26%
|
St Bernard Hospital
326 West 64th St
| Hospital (General Medical & Surgical) | 16.6 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
| 5,876 tons
Highest 13%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data