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.)
THE CAROLAN APARTMENTS 5480 S CORNELL AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	617 tons Lowest 36%
Kass Management Services, Inc.(5620-5626 N. Kenmore Ave.) 5620 5626 N KENMORE AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	278 tons Lowest 7%
468 West Melrose Street 468 W MELROSE ST	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	282 tons Lowest 8%
900 W Fullerton 900 W FULLERTON AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	270 tons Lowest 7%
One North LaSalle 1 N LaSalle St	Office	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	2,803 tons Highest 14%
Lake View High School (CPS) 4015 N Ashland Ave	K-12 School	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	1,353 tons Highest 35%
Pratt Blvd Place Condo Assoc 1645 1663 W PRATT BLVD	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	349 tons Lowest 13%
25 E Washington 25 E Washington St	Office	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	2,490 tons Highest 17%
Gurdon S Hubbard High School (CPS) 6200 S Hamlin Ave	K-12 School	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	1,108 tons Highest 41%
Michael M Byrne Elementary School 5329 S Oak Park Avenue	K-12 School	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	394 tons Lowest 17%
One Bennett Park 451 E Grand Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	3,960 tons Highest 9%
3Eleven 311 W Illinois St	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	1,448 tons Highest 32%
Marlowe - LMC 675 N Wells St	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	649 tons Lowest 38%
Monroe Aberdeen Place (mn147) 33 S Aberdeen St	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	947 tons Highest 47%
Wells Place Apartments 839 S WELLS ST	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	529 tons Lowest 29%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data