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.)
Rosenwald Hall 1101-11 East 58th Street	Office	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	296 tons Lowest 9%
Lincoln Common A2 2335 N Lincoln Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,302 tons Highest 36%
Solstice on the Park 1616 E 56Th St	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,544 tons Highest 31%
Luxe on Chicago - CO (lx016) 1838 W CHICAGO AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	319 tons Lowest 11%
Old Town Midrise Condominium Association 343 W Old Town Court	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	415 tons Lowest 19%
Archer Building Lofts Condominium Association 2301 15 S Archer Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	457 tons Lowest 23%
University Village Lofts 1524 S Sangamon St	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,157 tons Highest 40%
St. Vincent de Paul 4040 N Oakley St	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	386 tons Lowest 17%
Montclare Senior Residences of Avalon Park Phase II 1210 E 78th St	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	472 tons Lowest 24%
Crilly Court Condominium Association 1717 N Crilly Ct	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	301 tons Lowest 9%
Amhurst Lofts 2600 N Southport Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	509 tons Lowest 27%
1263 Pratt, LLC 1257 1265 W Pratt Blvd	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	472 tons Lowest 24%
Marvin Camras Elementary School (CPS) 3000 N Mango Ave	K-12 School	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	579 tons Lowest 33%
Martha Ruggles Elementary School (CPS) 7831 S Prairie Ave	K-12 School	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	454 tons Lowest 22%
Walter L Newberry Math & Science Academy ES (CPS) 708 W Willow St	K-12 School	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	348 tons Lowest 13%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data