Meet 60623, the Chicago zip code containing the North Lawndale and Little Village neighborhoods, one of the country’s biggest frontlines in the battle for environmental justice.

Tucked into the city’s Southwest Side, the once-industrial corridor is now a part of the region’s quickly growing warehouse and logistics network. What does that lead to? Air pollution. More diesel air pollution than anywhere else in the country, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. What that doesn’t lead to: well-paying jobs. Nearly 45 percent of children and 30 percent of adults live in poverty. In addition, there’s the lethal combination of over-policing and incarceration, compounded by the area’s racial makeup — 67 percent Latino and 30 percent Black.

So how, you might ask, does it rate as one of the most sustainable zip codes in Chicago?

A new study authored by researchers at McGill University in Montreal and the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability has the answers. The study, which was the first national-level analysis of the energy use and carbon emissions of roughly 60 million American households, found that even though energy-efficient homes are more often found in white neighborhoods, carbon emissions from these neighborhoods are significantly higher than those in majority Latino and Black neighborhoods.

Chicago’s 60623 zip code illuminates this. The average resident in the zip code emits the least amount of greenhouse gases out of all the city’s 67 zip codes, according to the study. Households in the community are also extremely energy efficient. In comparison, the average resident in the city’s affluent, majority-white Near North Side emits 2.8 times more greenhouse gases than those in the Southwest Side community. Homes in 60623 are also 1.5 times more energy-efficient than those on the Near North Side.

Read the full article about gaps in energy efficiency and equity by Adam Mahoney at Grist.