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.)
Museum Pointe CA 233 E 13th St	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	1,817 tons Highest 26%
Daniel R Cameron Elementary School (CPS) 1234 N Monticello Ave	K-12 School	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	620 tons Lowest 36%
3260 North Lake Shore 3260 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	1,166 tons Highest 39%
Ivy at Carlson 1401 E HYDE PARK BLVD	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	250 tons Lowest 5%
813-31 West Waveland 813 831 W WAVELAND AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	225 tons Lowest 4%
Westminster Condominium Association 36 50 N MENARD AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	308 tons Lowest 10%
Sono East - CO (ss78) 840 W Blackhawk St	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	1,428 tons Highest 33%
500 Lake Shore Drive 500 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	3,250 tons Highest 12%
33 West Ontario Street 33 W Ontario St	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	4,661 tons Highest 8%
Kenmore Plaza Tenants Association (CHA) 5225 N Kenmore Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	1,203 tons Highest 39%
Park Edgewater Condominium Association 6101 N Sheridan Road	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	669 tons Lowest 40%
1601 W Division LLC 1611 W DIVISION ST	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	485 tons Lowest 26%
225 W. Ohio 225 W Ohio St	Office	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	273 tons Lowest 7%
Renaissance North - Avanath (CHA) 551 557 W NORTH AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	283 tons Lowest 8%
Trevi Square Condominium Association 1439 S MICHIGAN AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	463 tons Lowest 23%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data