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.)
De La Salle Institute 3434 S Michigan Ave	K-12 School	4.9 kg/sqft Lowest 22%	815 tons Lowest 47%
Old Post Office 🚩 404 W HARRISON ST	Office	4.9 kg/sqft Lowest 22%	12,038 tons #49 Highest
Harper Place Condominium Association 5309 5343 S HARPER AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.9 kg/sqft Lowest 22%	430 tons Lowest 20%
Museum of Science and Industry 5700 S Lake Shore Dr	Museum	4.9 kg/sqft Lowest 22%	5,884 tons Highest 6%
311 West Monroe 311 W Monroe	Office	4.9 kg/sqft Lowest 22%	2,069 tons Highest 22%
Brompton 701 709 W BROMPTON AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.9 kg/sqft Lowest 22%	260 tons Lowest 6%
Union Row 560-648 W 16th Street	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	337 tons Lowest 12%
Madden Wells Ph 1B 650 E 38TH PLACE	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	957 tons Highest 47%
Elevate Lincoln Park _ CO (lv008) 930 W Altgeld St	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	1,537 tons Highest 31%
Sherwin Sheridan LLC 7347 7365 Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	474 tons Lowest 25%
NEXT - CO (nx04) 347 W Chestnut St	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	2,020 tons Highest 22%
1345 S. Wabash Condominium Association 1345 S Wabash Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	839 tons Lowest 48%
Prairie Avenue Lofts 221 E Cullerton Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	871 tons Lowest 50%
AMLI Lofts Polk 111 W Polk St	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	973 tons Highest 46%
Roosevelt Square II (CHA) 1222 W Roosevelt Rd	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	757 tons Lowest 44%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data