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.)
1260 Astor Building Corporation 1260 N ASTOR ST	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	510 tons Lowest 28%
South River Park Condominium Association 400 N CLINTON ST	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	417 tons Lowest 19%
Windermere House 1642 E 56th St	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	1,896 tons Highest 24%
Chicago Medical Society 515 N Dearborn St	Office	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	276 tons Lowest 7%
Madison 901 Condominium Association 901 W MADISON	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	1,419 tons Highest 33%
Damen Court Apartments 220 S DAMEN AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	689 tons Lowest 41%
451 W Melrose, LLC 447 455 W MELROSE ST	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	282 tons Lowest 8%
The Narragansett Condominium Inc 1640 E 50TH ST	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	777 tons Lowest 45%
725 W Sheridan Condominium Association, Inc. 721 729 W SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	275 tons Lowest 7%
Arlington Place 546 550 W ARLINGTON PL	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	295 tons Lowest 9%
531 W. Deming 531 535 W DEMING PL	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	347 tons Lowest 13%
George W Dunne Cook County Office Building 69 W Washington St	Office	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	4,380 tons Highest 8%
1250 N LaSalle Condominium Association 1250 N LASALLE DR	Multifamily Housing	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	847 tons Lowest 49%
550 West Adams 550 W Adams	Office	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	2,733 tons Highest 15%
One North Dearborn 1 N Dearborn St	Office	5.3 kg/sqft Lowest 28%	5,751 tons Highest 6%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data