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.)
5536 N. Sheridan 5530 5548 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	335 tons Lowest 12%
344-358 W. Oakdale Ave. 344 358 W OAKDALE AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	626 tons Lowest 37%
20 North Clark Street - 2821 20 N Clark St	Office	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	2,563 tons Highest 16%
4600 N. Cumberland Condominium Association 4600 N CUMBERLAND AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	343 tons Lowest 13%
154-60 N LASALLE 160 N LaSalle St	Office	5.7 kg/sqft Lowest 35%	2,654 tons Highest 16%
William Howard Taft High School - Academy 4071 N Oak Park Ave	K-12 School	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	755 tons Lowest 44%
Lincoln Common A1 2345 N Lincoln Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	2,089 tons Highest 21%
4 East Elm 4 E ELM ST	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	1,094 tons Highest 42%
Cicero & George 4800 W GEORGE ST	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	431 tons Lowest 20%
Residences at The Vic 3140 N Sheffield Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	659 tons Lowest 39%
4423 N Sheridan 4423 N Sheridan Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	523 tons Lowest 29%
Albert R Sabin Elementary Magnet School (CPS) 2216 W Hirsch St	K-12 School	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	534 tons Lowest 30%
StMonica_School 5115 N Mont Clare Ave	K-12 School	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	303 tons Lowest 9%
William B Ogden Elementary School - Jenner Branch (CPS) 1119 N Cleveland Ave	K-12 School	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	508 tons Lowest 27%
Harriet E Sayre Elementary Language Academy (CPS) 1850 N Newland Ave	K-12 School	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	449 tons Lowest 22%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data