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.)
Post Card Place CA 1733 1735 W IRVING PARK RD	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	413 tons Lowest 19%
219 E Lake Shore CA 219 227 E LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	876 tons Lowest 50%
1540 Lake Shore Dr 1534 1542 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	627 tons Lowest 37%
1340 N Dearborn Condominium Association 1340 N DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	480 tons Lowest 25%
CUMBERLAND CROSSING CONDOMINIUM 5555 N CUMBERLAND AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	600 tons Lowest 35%
399 Corporation 399 W FULLERTON PKWY	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	586 tons Lowest 34%
Malden Property LLC 4501 4519 N MALDEN ST	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	357 tons Lowest 14%
33E. Condo Association 27 39 E CEDAR ST	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	726 tons Lowest 43%
Morgan Park High School (CPS) 1744 W Pryor Ave	K-12 School	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	1,209 tons Highest 38%
William J Bogan High School (CPS) 3939 W 79th St	K-12 School	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 16%	840 tons Lowest 48%
18/ST Condominiums 1802 S STATE ST	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	242 tons Lowest 5%
Alta Roosevelt (lz28) 801 S Financial Place	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	2,813 tons Highest 14%
Carriage House (gc09) 1545 S State St	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	589 tons Lowest 34%
Glen Lake I Condominium Association 6400 W Berteau	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	1,911 tons Highest 24%
St. Paul Lofts Condominium Association 2333 W Saint Paul Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	469 tons Lowest 24%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data