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 โAs of 2016, this list includes all commercial, institutional, and residential buildings larger than 50,000 square feet.โ 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.) |
---|---|---|---|
Presence Resurrection Medical Center
๐จ
7435 W Talcott Ave
| Hospital (General Medical & Surgical) | 20.9 kg/sqft
Highest 8%
| 22,882 tons #13 Highest
|
U.S. Cellular Plaza - 8410 _ Goby LLC
๐
8410 W Bryn Mawr Ave
| Office | 20.7 kg/sqft
Highest 8%
| 4,410 tons
Highest 19%
|
The Art Institute of Chicago
๐จ
๐ท
111 S Michigan Ave
| Museum | 20.7 kg/sqft
Highest 8%
| 20,891 tons #19 Highest
|
Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush
1611 W HARRISON ST
| Medical Office | 20.6 kg/sqft
Highest 8%
| 3,105 tons
Highest 29%
|
NMH Feinberg Pavilion and Galter Pavilion
๐จ
251 E Huron St
| Hospital (General Medical & Surgical) | 20.6 kg/sqft
Highest 8%
| 45,388 tons #6 Highest
|
1500 N Clybourn Ave
1500 N Clybourn Ave
| Supermarket/Grocery Store | 20.4 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 1,706 tons
Lowest 38%
|
Bria of Forest Edge
8001 S Western Ave
| Senior Living Community | 20.4 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 1,486 tons
Lowest 29%
|
Physics Research Center
๐
933 E 56th Street
| Laboratory | 20.2 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 1,355 tons
Lowest 22%
|
The James Hotel
55 E Ontario St
| Hotel | 20.2 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 1,456 tons
Lowest 27%
|
Shriners Hospital for Children-Chicago
2211 N Oak Park Ave
| Hospital (General Medical & Surgical) | 20.1 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 3,951 tons
Highest 22%
|
Chicago Board Options Exchange
400 S LaSalle St
| Financial Office | 20.0 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 6,968 tons
Highest 10%
|
Clark Manor Convalescent Center
7427 7433 N CLARK ST
| Senior Living Community | 20.0 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 1,175 tons
Lowest 13%
|
Advocate Trinity Hospital
2320 E 93rd St
| Hospital (General Medical & Surgical) | 19.8 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 7,259 tons
Highest 9%
|
Page Building
๐
177 N State St
| Office | 19.7 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 1,043 tons
Lowest 4%
|
1050 W Sheridan
1050 W Sheridan
| Other - Education | 19.7 kg/sqft
Highest 9%
| 2,747 tons
Highest 34%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data