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.)
1820 N Spaulding 1824 N SPAULDING AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	304 tons Lowest 10%
Museum of Contemporary Art 220 E Chicago Ave	Museum	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	1,406 tons Highest 33%
Sweeting Center 860 N. LaSalle 860 N LaSalle St	College/University	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	565 tons Lowest 32%
Roosevelt Collection 150 W Roosevelt Rd	Mixed Use Property	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	5,112 tons Highest 7%
K2 Apartments 365 N Halsted St	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	3,328 tons Highest 11%
1414 North Wells Condominium Association 1414 N WELLS ST	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	378 tons Lowest 16%
4240 N Clarendon 4240 4248 N CLARENDON AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	356 tons Lowest 13%
Clybourn Lofts Condominium Association 1872 N CLYBOURN AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	552 tons Lowest 31%
The River West 2 Condominium Association 939 W HURON ST	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	280 tons Lowest 8%
606 West Cornelia LLC 606 620 W CORNELIA AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	339 tons Lowest 12%
450 Briar Place Condominium Association 450 W BRIAR PL	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	754 tons Lowest 44%
Oakwood Shores Sr 3750 S COTTAGE GROVE AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	357 tons Lowest 14%
411 S Wells 411 - 415 S Wells St	Office	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 19%	276 tons Lowest 7%
Upshore Chapter 4555 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	592 tons Lowest 34%
Englewood STEM High School 6835 S Normal Blvd	K-12 School	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	729 tons Lowest 43%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data