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.)
6151 N Winthrop 6151 N Winthrop Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	459 tons Lowest 23%
Highlands Tudor Manor (hg34) 7018 S Cregier Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	349 tons Lowest 13%
Enola Dew 4623 W Galdys Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	299 tons Lowest 9%
John F Eberhart Elementary School (CPS) 3400 W 65th Place	K-12 School	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	874 tons Lowest 50%
North Lawndale College Prep - Christiana (CPS) 1616 S Spaulding Ave	K-12 School	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	733 tons Lowest 43%
James G Blaine Elementary School (CPS) 1420 W Grace St	K-12 School	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	524 tons Lowest 29%
Richard Edwards Elementary School (CPS) 4815 S Karlov Ave	K-12 School	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	842 tons Lowest 48%
Friedrich L. Jahn Elementary of the Fine Arts (CPS) 3149 N Wolcott Ave	K-12 School	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	439 tons Lowest 21%
Thomas J Waters Elementary School (CPS) 4540 N Campbell Ave	K-12 School	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	501 tons Lowest 27%
Reside on Surf 425 W Surf St	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	630 tons Lowest 37%
Museum Tower Residences (251218) 1335 S Prairie Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	1,917 tons Highest 24%
Winston Towers One 6933 N Kedzie Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	1,716 tons Highest 28%
Hyde Park Bank 1515 - 1531 E 53rd St	Office	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	842 tons Lowest 48%
Windy City South LLC 2014 2036 S MICHIGAN AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	744 tons Lowest 44%
Reside on Clarendon 4157 N CLARENDON AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	332 tons Lowest 12%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data