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.)
Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School (CPS) 3444 W Wabansia Ave	K-12 School	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	746 tons Lowest 44%
John L Marsh Elementary School (CPS) 9804 S Exchange	K-12 School	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	783 tons Lowest 46%
3180 N LSD 3180 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	1,961 tons Highest 23%
212 W Washington Condo 212 W Washington St	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	1,555 tons Highest 30%
3150 CA 3150 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	2,770 tons Highest 15%
The Columbian Condominium Association 1160 S Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	2,577 tons Highest 16%
111 South Morgan 111 S Morgan St	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	1,072 tons Highest 43%
Maple Tower Condominium Association 1035 N DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	636 tons Lowest 38%
Lake Park Plaza Condominium Association 3930 N Pine Grove Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	2,895 tons Highest 14%
The Carlyle Apartments Condo 1040 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	2,822 tons Highest 14%
7321 S. Shore Co-Operative Apts. Inc 7321 S South Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	962 tons Highest 47%
BVM Hall/IES-ID#175895 6364 N SHERIDAN RD	Office	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	617 tons Lowest 36%
East View Park Condominium Association 5423 5453 S EASTVIEW PARK	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	333 tons Lowest 12%
436-446 W. Diversey Pkwy. 436 446 W DIVERSEY PKWY	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	383 tons Lowest 16%
247 East Chestnut Condominium Association 247 E Chestnut St	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	720 tons Lowest 42%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data