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.)
84SBJ-CHINO-Westin Chicago River North 320 N Dearborn Ave	Hotel	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	1,843 tons Highest 25%
4101-4113 N Kedzie Ave: 4113 North Kedzie Avenue 4101 4113 N KEDZIE AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	223 tons Lowest 4%
1550 S Indiana 1550 S INDIANA AVE	Mixed Use Property	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	377 tons Lowest 15%
Churchview Manor & Supportive Living Apartments 2626 2644 W 63RD ST	Senior Living Community	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	610 tons Lowest 35%
Michigan Building Corporation 229 235 E LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	396 tons Lowest 18%
Roscoe Building 434 436 W ROSCOE ST	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	304 tons Lowest 10%
424 West Oakdale Avenue 424 W OAKDALE AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	220 tons Lowest 3%
Superior West Private Residences 101 W SUPERIOR ST	Multifamily Housing	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	465 tons Lowest 24%
Auditorium Building 430 S Michigan Ave	College/University	4.2 kg/sqft Lowest 12%	2,488 tons Highest 17%
Blackstone Court LLC 5724 5734 S BLACKSTONE AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.1 kg/sqft Lowest 11%	217 tons Lowest 3%
Cityview Lofts 1259 N Wood Street	Multifamily Housing	4.1 kg/sqft Lowest 11%	206 tons Lowest 3%
Chantico Lofts 1061 W 16th Street	Multifamily Housing	4.1 kg/sqft Lowest 11%	224 tons Lowest 4%
The Paragon 1326 S Michigan Avenue	Multifamily Housing	4.1 kg/sqft Lowest 11%	2,384 tons Highest 18%
Gill Park Cooperative 810 W. Grace St.	Multifamily Housing	4.1 kg/sqft Lowest 11%	927 tons Highest 48%
Park Douglas Apartments (CHA) 1235 S Washtenaw	Multifamily Housing	4.1 kg/sqft Lowest 11%	275 tons Lowest 7%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data