Electrify Chicago

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.

2017 GHG Emissions -
31M metric tons CO2 equivalent
69% buildings
24% transportation
7% waste

Chicago 2022 CAP

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.

Legislative update! 🎉

As of late January 2024, legislation is being introduced to require new buildings 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 that end up on this site.

If you're in Chicago, write to your alderman to support the CABO!

Chicago Buildings by Greenhouse Gas Intensity

Note: Data only includes large Chicago buildings from 2021, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

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.

Chicago 2022 CAP

Property Name / address	Primary Property Type	Greenhouse Gas Intensity (kg CO₂ eq./sqft)	Total Greenhouse Emissions (metric tons CO₂ eq.)
Bauer Building 230 W Huron St	Office	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	397 tons Lowest 18%
5630 N Sheridan 5630 N Sheridan Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	1,433 tons Highest 33%
Grace St. 635 W Grace St	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	757 tons Lowest 44%
900 North Franklin 900 N Franklin St	Office	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	580 tons Lowest 33%
Edgebrook Elementary School (CPS) 6525 N Hiawatha Ave	K-12 School	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	392 tons Lowest 17%
Chicago Bulls College Prep (CPS) 2040 W Adams St	K-12 School	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	693 tons Lowest 41%
Roald Amundsen High School (CPS) 5110 N Damen Ave	K-12 School	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	1,317 tons Highest 35%
Luther Burbank Elementary School (CPS) 2035 N Mobile Ave	K-12 School	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	1,000 tons Highest 45%
James Shields Middle School (CPS) 2611 W 48th St	K-12 School	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	573 tons Lowest 33%
LaSalle II Magnet Elementary School (CPS) 1148 N Honore St	K-12 School	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	554 tons Lowest 31%
Ferdinand Peck Elementary School (CPS) 3826 W 58th St	K-12 School	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	663 tons Lowest 39%
Carl von Linne Elementary School (CPS) 3221 N Sacramento Ave	K-12 School	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	641 tons Lowest 38%
University Hall 2345 N Clifton Ave	College/University	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	519 tons Lowest 28%
4950 Powhatan Building Corp. 4950 S Chicago Beach Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	1,013 tons Highest 44%
210 East Pearson Condominium Association 210 E Pearson	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	628 tons Lowest 37%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data