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.)
Lakeside Square Apartments 920 W Lakeside Pl	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	1,571 tons Highest 30%
Yusho/Commercial Bldg. 🏆 5301 5331 S KIMBARK AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	337 tons Lowest 12%
Mayfair Commons 4444 W LAWRENCE AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	477 tons Lowest 25%
4200 Marine Drive Condominium Association 4200 4212 N MARINE DR	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	641 tons Lowest 38%
1300 Astor Tower 1300 1306 N ASTOR ST	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	561 tons Lowest 32%
1335 Astor Cooperative 1335 1343 N ASTOR ST	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	622 tons Lowest 36%
1515 W. MORSE LLC 1509 1521 W MORSE AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	350 tons Lowest 13%
Park Castle Condominium Association 2416 2458 W GREENLEAF AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	449 tons Lowest 22%
6300 Sheridan Building Condominium Association 6300 6326 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	796 tons Lowest 46%
3470 N Lake Shore Dr 3470 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	739 tons Lowest 43%
Pine Grove Property LLC 2828 N PINE GROVE AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	548 tons Lowest 31%
Brandon Shores Condo Association 6150 N KENMORE AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	412 tons Lowest 19%
205 W. Wacker 205 W Wacker Dr	Office	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	1,744 tons Highest 27%
333 North Michigan 333 N Michigan Ave	Office	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	1,974 tons Highest 23%
71215A STATE STREET Macy's 101 N State St E	Retail Store	5.6 kg/sqft Lowest 33%	10,269 tons Highest 2%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data