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.)
Kennelly Square Condominium Association 1749 N Wells St	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	1,877 tons Highest 25%
Malibu East Condominium 6033 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	5,618 tons Highest 6%
Avenue East Condominiums 160 E Illinois St	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	1,463 tons Highest 32%
Hermitage on Huron Condominium (235635) 70 W Huron St	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	1,487 tons Highest 32%
Neapolitan 1212 N Wells St	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	1,034 tons Highest 44%
Cornell Village Tower Condominium Association 5201 S Cornell Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	1,649 tons Highest 28%
Park Apartments 220 E GARFIELD BLVD	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	584 tons Lowest 34%
The Lofts at Gin Alley 120 N Green St	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	381 tons Lowest 16%
Sheridan Pratt LLC 1200 W Pratt Blvd	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	496 tons Lowest 27%
C5870LAK (22233) 5870 W LAKE ST	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	286 tons Lowest 8%
1313 Randolph - Greystar 1313 W RANDOLPH ST	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	509 tons Lowest 27%
Park Gables Apartment Homes, INC 2438 2484 W ESTES AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	591 tons Lowest 34%
Black Ensemble Theater 4450 N Clark St	Performing Arts	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	307 tons Lowest 10%
3940 W Bryn Mawr 3940 W BRYN MAWR AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	346 tons Lowest 13%
CICS Northtown 3900 W Peterson Ave	K-12 School	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	705 tons Lowest 42%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data