Electrify Chicago
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.
Legislative update! 🎉
As of late January 2024, legislation is being introduced to require new buildings use more efficient forms of water and space heating, via the Clean And Affordable Buildings Ordinance (CABO), which will reduce the number of highly polluting and inefficient that end up on this site.
If you're in Chicago,
write to your alderman to support the CABO!
Chicago Buildings by Greenhouse Gas Intensity
Note: Data only includes large Chicago buildings from 2021, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
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 2021, 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.) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
61480 - Galewood 14
5530 W Homer St
| Movie Theater | 14.9 kg/sqft 
Highest 6%
| 863 tons 
Lowest 49%
|
|
08270 - Ford City 14
7601 S Cicero Ave
| Movie Theater | 14.8 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
| 1,076 tons
Highest 42%
|
|
Walmart Supercenter #5781
8331 S Stewart Ave
| Wholesale Club/Supercenter | 14.8 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
| 2,190 tons
Highest 20%
|
|
ELEVATE CARE CHICAGO NORTH
2451 W Touhy Ave
| Senior Living Community | 14.8 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
| 1,250 tons
Highest 37%
|
|
The Racquet Club of Chicago
1357 1367 N DEARBORN ST
| Fitness Center/Health Club/Gym | 14.6 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 905 tons
Highest 49%
|
|
22 West Washington
22 W Washington St
| Office | 14.6 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 6,889 tons
Highest 4%
|
|
NMH Arkes Family Pavilion
🚩
676 N St Clair St
| Medical Office | 14.6 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 9,854 tons
Highest 3%
|
|
Hotel Zachary
3630 N Clark St
| Hotel | 14.5 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 2,683 tons
Highest 15%
|
|
820 N. Orleans
820 N Orleans St
| Office | 14.5 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 2,245 tons
Highest 19%
|
|
730 Michigan Avenue
730 N Michigan Ave
| Other - Mall | 14.5 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 3,301 tons
Highest 12%
|
|
Ascension SMEMC St Elizabeth Campus
1431 N Claremont Ave
| Mixed Use Property | 14.5 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 4,481 tons
Highest 8%
|
|
53100534--CHICAGO
🏆
1500 N Clybourn Ave
| Supermarket/Grocery Store | 14.4 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 1,202 tons
Highest 39%
|
|
Friend Center
800 E 55th St
| Medical Office | 14.3 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 1,047 tons
Highest 43%
|
|
1407 S. Michigan
1411 S Michigan Avenue
| Mixed Use Property | 14.2 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 1,150 tons
Highest 40%
|
|
Lincoln Common D
2350 N Lincoln Ave
| Office | 14.1 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 813 tons
Lowest 47%
|
Data Source:
Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data