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.)
Lakeside Tower Condo Association 1600 S Indiana Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	1,446 tons Highest 32%
1000 Adams CA 1000 W Adams St	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	1,090 tons Highest 42%
HRTL - Leland Apts: 1207 W Leland Ave 1201 1213 W LELAND AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	440 tons Lowest 21%
Tower Lofts Condo 3240 N ASHLAND AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	1,041 tons Highest 44%
Hazel Apartments, LLC 4278 N HAZEL ST	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	280 tons Lowest 8%
Lewis Towers-ID# 174182 820 N Michigan Ave	Office	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	1,285 tons Highest 36%
Clark Street Investors L.L.C. 3134 N Clark St	Urgent Care/Clinic/Other Outpatient	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	342 tons Lowest 13%
Apostolic Church of God 6340 S Dorchester Ave	Worship Facility	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	1,284 tons Highest 37%
55 W. Chestnut Apartments 55 W CHESTNUT ST	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	1,215 tons Highest 38%
624 S Michigan 624 S Michigan Ave	College/University	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	953 tons Highest 47%
Santa Clara Hall-ID# 161053 1000 - 1008 W Loyola Ave	Residence Hall/Dormitory	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	359 tons Lowest 14%
2101 S. Michigan Apartments 2101 S Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	1,199 tons Highest 39%
North Park Village Apartments 5801 N Pulaski Rd - Bldg H	Residential Care Facility	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	1,621 tons Highest 29%
Hilliard Homes Limited Partnership (Senior) (CHA) 2111 S Clark Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	1,518 tons Highest 31%
224 North Desplaines 224 N Desplaines St	Office	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 39%	457 tons Lowest 23%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data