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.)
Franz Peter Schubert Elementary School (CPS) 2727 N Long Ave	K-12 School	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	544 tons Lowest 31%
Josephine C Locke Elementary School (CPS) 2845 N Newcastle Ave	K-12 School	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	634 tons Lowest 37%
Ernst Prussing Elementary School (CPS) 4650 N Menard Ave	K-12 School	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	516 tons Lowest 28%
Matthew Gallistel Elementary Language Academy (CPS) 10347 S Ewing Ave	K-12 School	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	515 tons Lowest 28%
Minnie Mars Jamieson Elementary School (CPS) 5650 N Mozart St	K-12 School	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	607 tons Lowest 35%
1164 West Madison 1164 W Madison	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	1,363 tons Highest 34%
3150 N Sheridan 3150 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	1,223 tons Highest 38%
325 West Huron Street 325 W Huron St	Office	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	808 tons Lowest 47%
William Jones College Preparatory High School (CPS) 600 S State St	K-12 School	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	2,055 tons Highest 22%
850 Dewitt Place Condominiums 850 N Dewitt Pl	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	1,415 tons Highest 33%
1100 N. Lake Shore Condominium Association 1100 N LAKESHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	1,239 tons Highest 38%
Metropolitan Tower Condo Association 310 S Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	3,147 tons Highest 13%
400 North LaSalle Condominium Association 400 N LaSalle St	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	3,221 tons Highest 12%
525 Hawthorne Place Condominium Association 525 W Hawthorne Pl	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	1,484 tons Highest 32%
Forty East Cedar Condominium 40 E CEDAR ST	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	520 tons Lowest 28%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data