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.)
Continental Plaza 1330 1358 W 76th St	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	1,025 tons Highest 44%
300 West Grand Condominium Association 300 310 W GRAND AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	483 tons Lowest 26%
537 S. Dearborn St. 537 S DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	391 tons Lowest 17%
Universal Building 700 N SACRAMENTO BLVD	Office	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	747 tons Lowest 44%
The Bronzeville Vincennes LLC 4724 S VINCENNES AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	435 tons Lowest 21%
Barclay Condominium Home Owners' Association, Inc 4940 S EASTEND AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	735 tons Lowest 43%
Westgate Center 331 S PEORIA ST	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	284 tons Lowest 8%
Lake Shore Land Association, Inc. 1130 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	297 tons Lowest 9%
Twelve Nine Astor Building Corporation 1209 1217 N ASTOR ST	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	484 tons Lowest 26%
Ravinia Lofts Condominium Association 2024 2030 S WABASH AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	308 tons Lowest 10%
415 Condominium Association 415 421 W ALDINE AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	693 tons Lowest 41%
2516-2526 N Kedzie Blvd 2516 2526 N KEDZIE BLVD	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	183 tons Lowest 2%
Aldine Building II LLC 528 534 W ALDINE AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	264 tons Lowest 6%
Institute of Cultural Affairs - Greenrise 4750 N Sheridan Rd	Office	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	904 tons Highest 49%
110 North Wacker Drive - Bank of America Tower 110 N WACKER DR	Office	4.9 kg/sqft Lowest 22%	8,494 tons Highest 3%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data