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.)
Thomas J Higgins Elementary Community Academy (CPS) 11710 S Morgan St	K-12 School	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	293 tons Lowest 9%
Parkway Gardens 🚩 6415 S Calumet Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	5,342 tons Highest 6%
East Point Condominium Association 6101E N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	1,793 tons Highest 26%
The Kent Apartments 2623 2627 N CLARK ST	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	852 tons Lowest 49%
Montclare Senior Residences Phase I and Montclare Senior Residences Phase II 6640 50 W Belden Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	1,669 tons Highest 28%
VB 1224 Lofts CA 1224 W Van Buren St	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	1,702 tons Highest 28%
24 S. Morgan 24 S MORGAN ST	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	739 tons Lowest 43%
20 North Michigan Avenue 20 N Michigan Ave	Office	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	1,220 tons Highest 38%
Flat Iron Building 1579 N. Milwaukee Avenue	Office	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	522 tons Lowest 29%
Madison Manor 2 900 920 W MADISON	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	810 tons Lowest 47%
City View Tower at Randolph Condominium Association 720 726 W RANDOLPH ST	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	826 tons Lowest 48%
Pershing Apartments (CHA) 3845 S STATE ST	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	519 tons Lowest 28%
6901 Oglesby Avenue Apartment Building Corporation 6901 6915 S OGLESBY AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	622 tons Lowest 37%
2740 W. Armitage 2740 W ARMITAGE AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	326 tons Lowest 11%
Lunt Court Condominium Association 1217 1227 W LUNT AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	342 tons Lowest 13%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data