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.)
625 West Adams 625 W Adams St	Office	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	2,079 tons Highest 22%
Optima Signature 220 E Illinois St	Multifamily Housing	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	3,777 tons Highest 10%
Glenmoor Manor 1041 1051 W Glenlake Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	235 tons Lowest 4%
Klee Plaza at Six Corners Condominium 4015 N Milwaukee Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	405 tons Lowest 18%
Peterson Lofts Condominium Association 523 S Plymouth Ct	Multifamily Housing	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	355 tons Lowest 13%
114 South Racine 114 S Racine Ave	Office	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	405 tons Lowest 18%
Myra Bradwell Communications Arts & Sciences ES (CPS) 7726 S Burnham	K-12 School	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	623 tons Lowest 37%
Adlai E Stevenson Elementary School (CPS) 8010 S Kostner Ave	K-12 School	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	545 tons Lowest 31%
Charles P Steinmetz College Preparatory HS (CPS) 3030 N Mobile Ave	K-12 School	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	1,694 tons Highest 28%
680 North Lake Shore Drive 680 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	7,167 tons Highest 4%
Superior At LaSalle Condominium Assoc 150 W SUPERIOR ST	Multifamily Housing	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	772 tons Lowest 45%
422 West Melrose 422 424 W MELROSE ST	Multifamily Housing	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	705 tons Lowest 41%
Bishop Plaza, LLC 1422 1424 W 47TH ST	Strip Mall	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	316 tons Lowest 11%
Aston -CO (pt64) 200 E Illinios St	Multifamily Housing	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	2,447 tons Highest 18%
3500 N Lake Shore 3500 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 13%	896 tons Highest 49%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data