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.)
Lunt Lake Cooperative Apartments 1122-40 W Lunt Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	489 tons Lowest 26%
222 E. Chestnut Condominium Association 222 E Chestnut	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	538 tons Lowest 30%
Coastland Apartments, Inc. 2666 E 73rd St	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	277 tons Lowest 7%
Maria Saucedo Elementary Scholastic Academy (CPS) 2850 W 24th Blvd	K-12 School	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	1,291 tons Highest 36%
Chicago High School for the Arts (ChiArts) (CPS) 2714 W Augusta Blvd	K-12 School	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	747 tons Lowest 44%
520 W Huron 520 W Huron St	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	1,229 tons Highest 38%
3520 N Lake Shore Dr 3520 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	1,239 tons Highest 38%
212 E. Condominium 212 E Cullerton St	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	658 tons Lowest 39%
372 West Ontario Street 372 W Ontario St	Office	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	222 tons Lowest 4%
555 Cornelia (251219) 555 W Cornelia Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	961 tons Highest 47%
530 North Lake Shore Drive 530 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	2,251 tons Highest 19%
3240 North Lake Shore Drive 3240 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	1,120 tons Highest 41%
5514 S. Cornell Condominium Association Inc 5514 5524 S CORNELL AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	243 tons Lowest 5%
444 West St. James LLC 444 W SAINT JAMES PL	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	495 tons Lowest 26%
714 -726 W. Waveland, LLC 714 N WAVELAND AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 14%	228 tons Lowest 4%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data