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.)
Aqua at Lakeshore East 🚩 📷 225 N Columbus Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	8,388 tons Highest 3%
Emerald Condo 123 - 125 S Green St	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	1,632 tons Highest 29%
Renaissance Lofts 1783 1791 W HOWARD ST	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	324 tons Lowest 11%
6334 N Sheridan Condominium Association 6334 6344 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	343 tons Lowest 13%
100 W. Chestnut St. 100 W Chestnut St	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	1,589 tons Highest 30%
Presidential Towers (ps19) 🚩 555 W Madison St	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	11,371 tons Highest 2%
AG One East Delaware Owner, LLC 1 E Delaware Pl	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	2,752 tons Highest 15%
Buena Pointe Condominium Association 4344 4360 N BROADWAY	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	815 tons Lowest 47%
65 E Wacker Place 65 E Wacker Pl	Office	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	1,349 tons Highest 35%
4651 N Greenview (ng55) 4651 N GREENVIEW AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	368 tons Lowest 15%
The Larrabee Condominium Association 865 N LARRABEE ST	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	431 tons Lowest 20%
City-Towne Condominium Association 517 525 N HALSTED ST	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	482 tons Lowest 25%
1001 Madison Condominium Association 1001 W MADISON ST	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	686 tons Lowest 40%
3300 North Lake Shore Drive 3300 3308 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	751 tons Lowest 44%
The Chatelaine 211 217 E CHESTNUT ST	Multifamily Housing	5.4 kg/sqft Lowest 30%	510 tons Lowest 27%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data