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.) |
---|---|---|---|
Oriental Institute
5850 S Woodlawn Ave
| Museum | 14.1 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 1,450 tons
Highest 32%
|
444 W Jackson
444 W Jackson Blvd
| Fitness Center/Health Club/Gym | 14.0 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 995 tons
Highest 45%
|
Sheridan Shores
640 W SHERIDAN RD
| Multifamily Housing | 14.0 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 854 tons
Lowest 49%
|
Presence Center for Advanced Care
331 W Surf St
| Medical Office | 13.9 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 3,342 tons
Highest 11%
|
Bradley Business Center I
2650 W Bradley Pl
| Office | 13.8 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 2,071 tons
Highest 22%
|
217 N. Jefferson
217 221 N JEFFERSON ST
| Office | 13.8 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 802 tons
Lowest 46%
|
Aperion Care International
4815 S Western Blvd
| Senior Living Community | 13.7 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 1,248 tons
Highest 37%
|
Halsted Terrance Nursing Home
10935 S HALSTED ST
| Senior Living Community | 13.7 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 824 tons
Lowest 48%
|
8816
🚩
(Northwestern)
375 E Chicago Ave
| College/University | 13.6 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 5,267 tons
Highest 6%
|
Schatz Building
610 N FAIRBANKS CT
| Retail Store | 13.6 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 981 tons
Highest 46%
|
Crowell 820 N. LaSalle
820 N LaSalle St
| College/University | 13.6 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 1,403 tons
Highest 34%
|
211 N Stetson Avenue
211 N STETSON AVE
| Fitness Center/Health Club/Gym | 13.5 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 1,589 tons
Highest 30%
|
Walmart Supercenter #5402
4650 W North Ave
| Wholesale Club/Supercenter | 13.5 kg/sqft
Highest 7%
| 1,913 tons
Highest 24%
|
Chapin Hall
1313 E 60th St
| College/University | 13.4 kg/sqft
Highest 8%
| 880 tons
Lowest 50%
|
AJ1034 - Chicago Marriott @ Medical District/UIC
625 S Ashland Ave
| Hotel | 13.4 kg/sqft
Highest 8%
| 965 tons
Highest 46%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data