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.)
213 West Institute Place 213 W Institute Pl	Office	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	659 tons Lowest 39%
Joyce Kilmer Elementary School (CPS) 6700 N Greenview Ave	K-12 School	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	447 tons Lowest 22%
Louis Nettelhorst Elementary School (CPS) 3252 N Broadway Ave	K-12 School	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	441 tons Lowest 22%
The Residences at Hudson & Huron Condominium Association 451 W HURON ST	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	929 tons Highest 48%
Museum Park Lofts 125 E 13th St	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	880 tons Lowest 50%
4300 Marine Drive Condominium Association 4300 N MARINE DR	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	820 tons Lowest 47%
7121 7125 N Paulina 🏆 7121 7125 N PAULINA ST	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	244 tons Lowest 5%
The Mark 4260 N BROADWAY ST	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	229 tons Lowest 4%
Heartbreak Loftominium Association 17 N LOOMIS ST	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	381 tons Lowest 16%
The Lofts at the Vic Condominium Association 1001 W BELMONT AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	321 tons Lowest 11%
5000 South Cornell 5000 S CORNELL AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	625 tons Lowest 37%
Providence St Mel School 119 S Central Park Blvd	K-12 School	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	782 tons Lowest 46%
Inter-American Elementary Magnet School (CPS) 851 W Waveland Ave	K-12 School	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	461 tons Lowest 23%
G & A Senior Residence at Eastgate Village 300 E 26TH ST	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	439 tons Lowest 21%
No. 10 Urban Court Lofts 1040 W Adams St	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	1,643 tons Highest 29%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data