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.)
2335 N. Commonwealth 🏆 2333 2341 N COMMONWEALTH AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	465 tons Lowest 24%
3410 Lakeshore Drive Condominium Association 3410 3412 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	1,005 tons Highest 45%
Surf III LLC 426 W SURF ST	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	468 tons Lowest 24%
Stein Place 5825 S DORCHESTER AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	423 tons Lowest 20%
2800 Lake Shore Drive Condo Association (102232) 2800 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	3,906 tons Highest 10%
Marist High School 4200 W 115th St	K-12 School	5.2 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	1,252 tons Highest 37%
Aspire Residences 2111 S Wabash Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	1,404 tons Highest 33%
Alta Grand Central (lt027) 221 W Harrison St	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	1,198 tons Highest 39%
1143 S Plymouth Court 1143 S Plymouth Court	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	697 tons Lowest 41%
1727 S Indiana 1727 S Indiana Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	895 tons Highest 49%
Haberdasher Square Lofts 728 W Jackson Blvd	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	2,156 tons Highest 21%
Cuneo Hall-ID# 254160 6430 N Kenmore Ave	Office	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	272 tons Lowest 7%
Drexel Towers 4917 4917 S Drexel Blvd	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	366 tons Lowest 14%
Loews Chicago Hotel & Residential 340 E North Water St	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	4,357 tons Highest 8%
Archer Place Condominium Association 2272 S Archer Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	356 tons Lowest 13%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data