Sears Tower to get a green

Energy efficient systems and wind turbines to grace Sears Tower.

Often being criticized as one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gases, the Sears Tower will be changing the misconception, at least for itself, as the authorities are planning a $350 million retrofit which will reduce the tower’s energy consumption by as much as 80%, owing to five years’ worth of thorough upgrades.


The plan is to install energy efficient internal lighting, heating, cooling and elevator systems, wind turbines that sprout from the tower’s recessed rooftops and an overall energy reduction by upgrades in the glass exterior. With the enormous size of the architecture that totals to about 4.5 million square feet of office and retail space, the tower’s retrofitting is expected to be one of the largest ever tried on site, even bigger and better than the Empire State Building’s makeover that was planned earlier this year.