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.)
Park Lincoln By Reside 2470 N Clark St	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	780 tons Lowest 46%
1120 N Lake Shore Drive 1120 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	712 tons Lowest 42%
231 South LaSalle 231 S LaSalle St	Office	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	6,132 tons Highest 5%
Malibu Condominium 6007 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	2,658 tons Highest 16%
565 West Quincy Condo Association 565 W Quincy St	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	2,005 tons Highest 23%
1700 East 56th Street 1700 E 56th St	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	2,462 tons Highest 17%
Venetian Condominium Association 222 232 W DIVISION ST	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	1,150 tons Highest 40%
Condos at Monroe Place 1228 W MONROE	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	270 tons Lowest 7%
Lakeside Tower, LLC 910 W LAWRENCE AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	473 tons Lowest 25%
Hunter Properties, Inc. (2232 W. Farwell Ave.) 2232 W FARWELL AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	264 tons Lowest 6%
Polish Roman Catholic Union of America 984 N MILWAUKEE AVE	Museum	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	275 tons Lowest 7%
The Flamingo 5500 S SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	851 tons Lowest 49%
The Denifer 5400 5406 N KENMORE AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	426 tons Lowest 20%
1338 West Argyle Street (wr80) 1338 1354 W ARGYLE ST	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	268 tons Lowest 6%
St. Mary of Providence 4200 N Austin Ave	Mixed Use Property	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	999 tons Highest 45%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data