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.)
Hampton/Homewood Suites Chicago West Loop 118 N JEFFERSON ST	Hotel	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	1,559 tons Highest 30%
Lakeview Pointe Condominium Association, Inc. 7736 7772 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	374 tons Lowest 15%
Nathalie Salmon House 7320 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	240 tons Lowest 5%
1934 N. Washtenaw CA 1934 N Washtenaw Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	396 tons Lowest 18%
5000 Marine Drive Corporation 5000 N Marine Dr	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	713 tons Lowest 42%
Ogden International High School (CPS) 1250 W Erie St	K-12 School	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	436 tons Lowest 21%
Henry O Tanner Elementary School (CPS) 7350 S Evans Ave	K-12 School	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	251 tons Lowest 5%
Alexander Hamilton Elementary School (CPS) 1650 W Cornelia Ave	K-12 School	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	352 tons Lowest 13%
The Theatre School 2350 N Racine Ave	College/University	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	767 tons Lowest 45%
50 East Bellevue Condo Association 50 E Bellevue Pl	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	1,140 tons Highest 40%
1530 Dearborn Parkway Association 1530 N DEARBORN PKWY	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	542 tons Lowest 30%
Tiara Home Owners Association 6145 6147 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	993 tons Highest 45%
West Roscoe 425 427 W ROSCOE ST	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	236 tons Lowest 5%
(IL554M) - Kinzie Station Condo, Mid 324 N JEFFERSON ST	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	177 tons Lowest 2%
Tandem Lofts Condo Association 1631 S MICHIGAN AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	401 tons Lowest 18%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data