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.)
150 North Riverside Plaza 150 N RIVERSIDE PLAZA	Office	5.8 kg/sqft Lowest 37%	8,678 tons Highest 3%
200 S. Michigan Ave 200 S Michigan Ave	Office	5.8 kg/sqft Lowest 37%	1,667 tons Highest 28%
550 West Washington 550 W Washington	Office	5.8 kg/sqft Lowest 37%	2,282 tons Highest 19%
IL0000FC-CHICAGO FEDERAL CTR 🚨 219 S Dearborn	Mixed Use Property	5.8 kg/sqft Lowest 37%	18,420 tons #26 Highest
One South Wacker 1 S Wacker	Office	5.8 kg/sqft Lowest 37%	7,795 tons Highest 4%
One South Dearborn 1 S Dearborn	Office	5.8 kg/sqft Lowest 37%	5,459 tons Highest 6%
20 North Wacker Drive 🚩 20 N Wacker Dr	Office	5.8 kg/sqft Lowest 37%	10,146 tons Highest 2%
5514 Blackstone Ave 5514 5524 S BLACKSTONE AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	417 tons Lowest 19%
River Walk Townhomes 2903-2923 N Claremont Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	408 tons Lowest 19%
McCrory Senior Housing 1659 W Washington Blvd	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	359 tons Lowest 14%
Perlstein Hall 10 W 33rd Street	College/University	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	583 tons Lowest 34%
Schiff Residence 1244 North Clybourn	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	366 tons Lowest 14%
EMME Chicago - CO (mz16) 165 N Desplaines St	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	1,121 tons Highest 41%
Buck City Lofts 1740 N Maplewood	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	545 tons Lowest 31%
North Washington Park Manor 550 E 50th Pl	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	304 tons Lowest 10%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data