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.)
79th St. Limited Partnership dba Wrightwood Service Center 2815 W 79th St	Senior Living Community	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	358 tons Lowest 14%
Harris Theater for Music and Dance 205 E Randolph St	Performing Arts	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	672 tons Lowest 40%
400 West Ontario Condominium Association 400 W Ontario St	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	1,086 tons Highest 42%
Library Tower Condo Association 520 S State St	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	1,731 tons Highest 27%
John B Murphy Elementary School (CPS) 3539 W Grace St	K-12 School	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	408 tons Lowest 19%
Ashburn Community Elementary School (CPS) 8300 S St Louis Ave	K-12 School	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	281 tons Lowest 8%
1150 West Fullerton Building 1150 W Fullerton Ave	College/University	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	248 tons Lowest 5%
3750 N Lake Shore Drive 3750 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	1,882 tons Highest 24%
1660 N LaSalle CA 1660 N LaSalle St	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	2,278 tons Highest 19%
Two West Delaware 2 W Delaware Pl	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	2,396 tons Highest 18%
North Center 4000 Condominium Association 4015 4027 N LINCOLN AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	362 tons Lowest 14%
Shore Crest Apartments 420 W WRIGHTWOOD AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	361 tons Lowest 14%
Parkside Square Condominium Association 5501 5525 N CHESTER AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	289 tons Lowest 8%
2970 North Sheridan 2970 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	1,172 tons Highest 39%
(IL278)-2000 N. Lincoln Park West 2000 - 2052 N Lincoln Park West	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 20%	1,255 tons Highest 37%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data