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.)
South Centre- Burley & 92nd 9230 S Burley Ave	Senior Living Community	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	862 tons Lowest 49%
Park Tower Condominium Association 5415 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	5,179 tons Highest 7%
Harbor Point 155 N Harbor Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	7,135 tons Highest 4%
1550 Condo Association 1550 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	2,154 tons Highest 21%
Chicago Teachers Union Foundation 1901 1945 CARROLL AVE	Office	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	660 tons Lowest 39%
Sutherland (CHA) 4659 S DREXEL BLVD	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	865 tons Lowest 50%
Ashland Devon Chicago Equities LLP 6748 6750 N ASHLAND AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	421 tons Lowest 20%
The Ambassador Condominium Homeowners Association 1300 N STATE PKWY	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	894 tons Highest 49%
Catalyst - Circle Rock 5600 5608 W WASHINGTON BLVD	K-12 School	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	670 tons Lowest 40%
Resurrection College Prep High School 7500 W Talcott Ave	K-12 School	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	1,016 tons Highest 44%
Cambridge Manor 2631 S Indiana Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	1,488 tons Highest 32%
AMLI River North 71 W Hubbard St	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	2,722 tons Highest 15%
Regents Park 🚩 5020 - 5050 S Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	8,714 tons Highest 3%
Oglesby Towers 6700 S OGLESBY AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	1,289 tons Highest 36%
Verde Condo Association 680 N GREEN ST	Multifamily Housing	6.0 kg/sqft Lowest 41%	425 tons Lowest 20%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data