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.) |
---|---|---|---|
Edward N Hurley Elementary School
(CPS)
3849 W 69th Pl
| K-12 School | 10.1 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 559 tons
Lowest 32%
|
Brooks Building LLC
223 W Jackson Blvd
| Office | 10.1 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 1,690 tons
Highest 28%
|
The Seneca - CO (sc22)
200 E Chestnut St
| Multifamily Housing | 10.1 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 1,699 tons
Highest 28%
|
Pendry Chicago
230 N Michigan Ave
| Hotel | 10.1 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 3,032 tons
Highest 13%
|
Lake Shore Plaza
445 E Ohio St
| Multifamily Housing | 10.1 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 4,213 tons
Highest 9%
|
Navy Pier, Inc.
📷
600 E Grand Ave
| Mixed Use Property | 10.1 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 11,655 tons
Highest 2%
|
900 North Michigan
🚩
900 North Michigan
| Mixed Use Property | 10.1 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 21,506 tons #13 Highest
|
330 WELLS OWNER LLC
330 S Wells St
| Multifamily Housing | 10.1 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 986 tons
Highest 46%
|
Corboy Law Center-ID# 101971
25 E Pearson St
| College/University | 10.1 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 3,111 tons
Highest 13%
|
IL0054ZZ - CLARK FEDERAL BLDG
536 S Clark St
| Office | 10.1 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 6,395 tons
Highest 5%
|
C5957MAD (22142)
5957-73 W Madison St
| Multifamily Housing | 10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 623 tons
Lowest 37%
|
Woodlawn Social Services Center
950 E 61st St
| Office | 10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 659 tons
Lowest 39%
|
John F Kennedy High School
(CPS)
6325 W 56th St
| K-12 School | 10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 2,349 tons
Highest 18%
|
750 N. Orleans
750 N Orleans St
| Office | 10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 744 tons
Lowest 44%
|
House of Blues Chicago
329 N Dearborn St
| Performing Arts | 10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
| 547 tons
Lowest 31%
|
Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data