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.)
Film Exchange Lofts Condominium Association 1307 1313 S WABASH AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	692 tons Lowest 41%
The Parc Orleans Condominium Association Inc 1546 N ORLEANS ST	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	636 tons Lowest 38%
Plaza Taino 1111 N FRANCISCO AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	366 tons Lowest 14%
The Highland Apartments, LLC 7455 7469 N GREENVIEW AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	280 tons Lowest 8%
1350 N Astor Street 1350 1358 N ASTOR ST	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	391 tons Lowest 17%
Mark Twain Elementary School (CPS) 5131 S Linder Ave	K-12 School	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	769 tons Lowest 45%
Three Belmont 505 W BELMONT AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	281 tons Lowest 8%
444-454 W. Melrose St. 444 454 W MELROSE ST	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	317 tons Lowest 11%
Sullivan Center 1 S State St	Office	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	4,779 tons Highest 7%
30 North LaSalle Street 30 N LaSalle St	Office	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	5,975 tons Highest 5%
55 West Monroe 55 W Monroe	Office	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	4,969 tons Highest 7%
Reside at 849 849 863 W BUENA AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.5 kg/sqft Lowest 32%	281 tons Lowest 8%
754 S Wabash 754 S WABASH AVE	College/University	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	660 tons Lowest 39%
The Cooper 720 S WELLS ST	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	2,447 tons Highest 18%
CICS Loomis Primary 9535 S Loomis St	K-12 School	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	285 tons Lowest 8%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data