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Electrify Chicago

According to the 2022 Chicago Climate Action Plan(opens in a new tab), 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.

Chicago Buildings by Greenhouse Gas Intensity

Note: Data only includes large Chicago buildings from 2020

Note: This data only includes buildings whose emissions are reported under the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Ordinance(opens in a new tab). 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 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.)
Advocate Center
15 S Wood St
Other
18.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
1,080 tons
Lowest 6%
Galter Life Center
5157 N Francisco Ave
Outpatient Rehabilitation/Physical Therapy
17.8 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
1,279 tons
Lowest 18%
Chalet Living and Rehab
7350 7352 N SHERIDAN RD
Senior Living Community
17.7 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
1,185 tons
Lowest 14%
Jeffery Plaza
2101 E 71ST ST
Supermarket/Grocery Store
17.4 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
1,972 tons
Lowest 48%
Belhaven Nursing & Rehab Center
11401 S OAKLEY AVE
Senior Living Community
17.3 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
1,206 tons
Lowest 15%
Alden Lakeland Rehabilitation and Health Care Center
820 W LAWRENCE AVE
Senior Living Community
17.3 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
1,550 tons
Lowest 32%
East Bank Club
500 N Kingsbury St
Fitness Center/Health Club/Gym
17.3 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
5,252 tons
Highest 14%
Northwestern University Chicago Campus
(Northwestern)
710 N Lakeshore Dr
College/University
17.2 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
4,055 tons
Highest 21%
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
345 E Superior St
College/University
17.1 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
6,349 tons
Highest 12%
Warner Brothers
2650 W Bradley Pl
Office
17.0 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
2,543 tons
Highest 38%
NMH Arkes Family Pavilion
🚩
676 N St Clair St
Medical Office
16.8 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
11,373 tons
Highest 5%
Alden Estate of Northmoor
5831 N Northwest Hwy
Senior Living Community
16.8 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
1,411 tons
Lowest 24%
Glencrest Nursing & Rehab Center
2451 W Touhy Ave
Senior Care Community
16.7 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
1,417 tons
Lowest 25%
Thorek Memorial Hospital
850 W Irving Park Rd
Hospital (General Medical & Surgical)
16.6 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
3,411 tons
Highest 26%
St Bernard Hospital
326 West 64th St
Hospital (General Medical & Surgical)
16.6 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
5,876 tons
Highest 13%
Page 10 of 86 (Building #136 to #150)

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data (opens in a new tab)