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.)
Nathan Hale Elementary School (CPS) 6140 S Melvina Ave	K-12 School	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	452 tons Lowest 22%
Tower Park Residences: 1235 South Prairie Avenue 1235 S Prairie Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	2,793 tons Highest 15%
1445 N State Parkway 1445 N State Pkwy	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,309 tons Highest 36%
2626 Lakeview Condominium 2626 N Lakeview Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	3,627 tons Highest 10%
StJuliana_School 7400 W Touhy	K-12 School	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	313 tons Lowest 10%
4336-44 S Drexel Blvd 4336 4344 S DREXEL BLVD	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	385 tons Lowest 16%
Harrison Street Lofts Condominium Association 80 W HARRISON ST	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	662 tons Lowest 39%
North & Talman Elderly Apartments 2636 2644 W NORTH AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	279 tons Lowest 7%
Lincoln Park High School (CPS) 2016 N Orchard St	K-12 School	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,568 tons Highest 30%
AMLI Lofts Clark 850 S CLARK ST	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	936 tons Highest 48%
Pullman Wheelworks 901 E 104th St	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,354 tons Highest 35%
Eight Eleven Uptown 826 W Montrose Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	2,196 tons Highest 20%
777 Condominium 777 N Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,794 tons Highest 26%
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 8765 W Higgins Rd	Office	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,157 tons Highest 40%
400 South Jefferson 400 S Jefferson St	Office	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,257 tons Highest 37%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data