An independent tool for viewing City of Chicago building data
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.
The City Of Chicago failed to collect $30 million in potential fines from the building benchmarking ordinance, reducing transparency and accountability.
As of late January 2024, legislation is being introduced to require new 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 buildings that end up on this site.
If you're in Chicago, write to your alderman to support the CABO!
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.) |
---|---|---|---|
211 West Wacker Drive
211 W Wacker Dr
| Office | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 1,087 tons
Highest 42%
|
1720 South Michigan Condominium Association
1720 S Michigan Ave
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 3,073 tons
Highest 13%
|
Sixty Thirty Condominium Association
6030 N Sheridan Rd
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 1,699 tons
Highest 28%
|
Lake Shore Towers Cooperative Building Corporation
3920 N LAKE SHORE DR
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 534 tons
Lowest 30%
|
One East Scott (237373)
1 E Scott St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 1,061 tons
Highest 43%
|
3430-40 N Lake Shore
3440 N Lake Shore Dr
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 2,093 tons
Highest 21%
|
Jefferson Tower Condominium Association
200 N Jefferson St
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 1,317 tons
Highest 36%
|
1122 N Dearborn
1122 N DEARBORN ST
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 1,360 tons
Highest 34%
|
1623 Belmont Ashland Assoc LP
1617 1633 W BELMONT AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 328 tons
Lowest 12%
|
Renaissance Place at Hyde Park Condominium Association North
5200 S ELLIS AVE
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 708 tons
Lowest 42%
|
Jeffery Building Inc.
1949 1959 E 71ST ST
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 301 tons
Lowest 9%
|
River West Lofts
925 W HURON ST
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 1,023 tons
Highest 44%
|
The Moody Memorial Church
1609 - 1641 N LaSalle St
| Worship Facility | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 837 tons
Lowest 48%
|
Noble Street Lofts Condominium
515 517 N NOBLE ST
| Multifamily Housing | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 386 tons
Lowest 16%
|
North & Kostner
4501 W North Ave
| Retail Store | 5.8 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
| 1,358 tons
Highest 34%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data