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.)
2731-2739 N Milwaukee Ave 2731 2739 N MILWAUKEE AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	315 tons Lowest 11%
Oakwood Shores 2B and 2D Campus 3859 S. Vincennes Avenue	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	892 tons Highest 49%
Galvin Library 35 W 33rd Street	College/University	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	419 tons Lowest 20%
221 W Hubbard 221 W Hubbard St	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	1,437 tons Highest 33%
Midway Pointe Senior Residences 5011 W 47TH ST	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	394 tons Lowest 17%
Terra Cotta Commons Condominium 1760 W Wrightwood Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	224 tons Lowest 4%
Palmer Square 2128-40 N Kedzie	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	966 tons Highest 46%
223 West Erie 223 W Erie St	Office	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	316 tons Lowest 11%
North Town Village I (CHA) 1311 N Halsted	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	461 tons Lowest 23%
UIC College Prep 1231 S Damen Ave	K-12 School	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	374 tons Lowest 15%
John Harvard Elementary School of Excellence (CPS) 7525 S Harvard Ave	K-12 School	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	365 tons Lowest 14%
Augustus H Burley Elementary School (CPS) 1630 W Barry Ave	K-12 School	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	264 tons Lowest 6%
860 Lake Shore Drive Trust 860 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	1,548 tons Highest 30%
The Belmont by Reside 3170 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	2,147 tons Highest 21%
CityView Condominium Association (241892) 440 N McClurg Ct	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	2,279 tons Highest 19%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data