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.)
5000 East End Condominium Association 5000 S East End Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	1,286 tons Highest 36%
The 400 Condominium Association 🚩 400 E Randolph St	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	6,155 tons Highest 5%
3550 N Lake Shore Drive 3550 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	3,771 tons Highest 10%
Marina Towers 📷 300 N State St	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	4,261 tons Highest 9%
5040-60 Marine Drive Condominium Association 5040-5060 N Marine	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	1,285 tons Highest 36%
The Whitney Condominium Association 1301 N DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	1,258 tons Highest 37%
The Scott Condominium Association 70 E SCOTT ST	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	446 tons Lowest 22%
Hunter Properties, Inc. (1055 W. Catalpa Ave.) 1055 W CATALPA AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	374 tons Lowest 15%
Gunnison Street Lofts Condo Assoc 4840 N BROADWAY	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	318 tons Lowest 11%
Market Square Lofts Condominium Association 161 W HARRISON ST	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	927 tons Highest 48%
Luxe on Madison ~ lx015 1214 1222 W MADISON ST	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	751 tons Lowest 44%
73 East Elm Street Condominium Association 73 E ELM ST	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	535 tons Lowest 30%
Thomas Kelly College Preparatory (CPS) 4136 S California Ave	K-12 School	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	1,631 tons Highest 29%
Hope Institute Learning Academy (CPS) 1628 W Washington Blvd	K-12 School	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	1,438 tons Highest 33%
Rosenwald Courts 4643 S Wabash	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	1,170 tons Highest 39%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data