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.)
WTTW 11 - Main Campus 5400 N St Louis Ave	Office	13.4 kg/sqft Highest 8%	2,448 tons Highest 18%
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago Main Building 1100 E 55TH ST	College/University	13.4 kg/sqft Highest 8%	1,603 tons Highest 29%
1123 The Allegro Royal Sonesta Hotel 171 W Randolph 🚩 151 171 W Randolph St	Hotel	13.4 kg/sqft Highest 8%	5,149 tons Highest 7%
Walter Henri Dyett High School for the Arts (CPS) 555 E 51st St	K-12 School	13.3 kg/sqft Highest 8%	2,160 tons Highest 21%
420 N Wabash Ave 420 N Wabash Ave	Office	13.3 kg/sqft Highest 8%	1,365 tons Highest 34%
Walmart Supercenter #5965 10900 S Doty Ave	Wholesale Club/Supercenter	13.3 kg/sqft Highest 8%	2,068 tons Highest 22%
Regenstein Library 1100 E 57th St	Library	13.3 kg/sqft Highest 8%	8,030 tons Highest 4%
Lavin Family Pavilion (Outpatient Care Pavilion) 259 E Erie St	Medical Office	13.3 kg/sqft Highest 8%	9,226 tons Highest 3%
63029-Sunrise of Lincoln Park 2710 N. Clark St	Senior Living Community	13.2 kg/sqft Highest 8%	661 tons Lowest 39%
SpringHill Suites O'Hare 8101 W Higgins Rd	Hotel	13.2 kg/sqft Highest 8%	2,106 tons Highest 21%
Whitney M Young Magnet High School (CPS) 211 S Laflin St	K-12 School	13.2 kg/sqft Highest 8%	5,702 tons Highest 6%
Jackson Square Nursing Home 5130 W JACKSON BLVD	Senior Living Community	13.0 kg/sqft Highest 8%	1,434 tons Highest 33%
540 West Madison 🚩 540 W Madison	Financial Office	13.0 kg/sqft Highest 8%	15,899 tons #31 Highest
City Hall (Chicago) 121 N LaSalle St	Office	12.9 kg/sqft Highest 8%	5,325 tons Highest 6%
Joffco Square 555 W Roosevelt Rd	Other - Mall	12.9 kg/sqft Highest 8%	1,229 tons Highest 38%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data