The Illinois Building Energy Challenge is an annual recognition and award program celebrating energy use reduction that is open to all commercial, industrial & multi-family buildings in Illinois. The Challenge invites building owners and operators across the state to put energy-efficient practices into action — and to have a little fun doing it, with a spirit of friendly competition among peers. Participating is free, and every qualifying building is encouraged to join. 

How Can I Gain Recognition?

There are 3 main ways to gain recognition:

• Most Energy Saved - Save the most in a single year in your building size and category.
• Energy Reduction Milestones - Reach 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% savings from your 2025 baseline year.
• Individual Awards - Nominate your building team members, service providers, or innovative retrofit project (nomination forms to open in January 2027).

What Are We Measuring?

The Challenge is measured through year-over-year percent change in Weather Normalized Source Energy Use Intensity. This means you will be comparing your building's percent change of energy use to other buildings in your category.

For this Challenge, we compare year-end calendar data from January 1st - December 31st. Percent Change is the current year’s usage minus the prior year’s usage divided by the prior year. It tells us whether a building lost or gained energy over a 2 year period.

Who Is Eligible?

Buildings of every kind are invited to participate! That includes commercial, industrial, institutional, municipal, non-profits, multi-family, education, retail, and more (single family residential is not eligible at this time). Newly constructed buildings that cannot share at least 24 months of energy data by December 31st are also ineligible. Any organization can enter one or more buildings or several, of any type, as long as the building is located in Illinois.

What Participation Means:

By participating in the challenge, you agree to:

• Share your building’s energy use data for two consecutive years in Energy Star Portfolio Manager
• Share your experience reducing your building’s energy use for future Challenge participants
• Share your experience and feedback for the Challenge

What you get:

• Recognition from Illinois Green Alliance at an annual in-person event
• Free education, tools, and resources
• Technical assistance (for eligible buildings)
• Potential opportunity to present a 15-minute case study at the Illinois Energy Efficiency Showcase
• Access to networking and education events
• Communications toolkit
  

Does the Challenge share my data?

Your privacy matters to us. If your building takes home an award, we’ll celebrate by sharing your energy savings percentage, and we’ll also report the combined energy savings achieved across all participants. Beyond that, the Illinois Building Energy Challenge never discloses your individual energy data.