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.)
15th Place Condo 811 - 833 W 15th Pl	Multifamily Housing	4.0 kg/sqft Lowest 10%	1,025 tons Highest 44%
411 W Ontario 411 W Ontario St	Multifamily Housing	4.0 kg/sqft Lowest 10%	1,058 tons Highest 43%
1101 S. State Street 📷 1101 S State St	Multifamily Housing	4.0 kg/sqft Lowest 10%	2,184 tons Highest 20%
The Resurrection Project - Casa Maravilla 2021 S MORGAN ST	Multifamily Housing	4.0 kg/sqft Lowest 10%	286 tons Lowest 8%
5 N. Wabash 1 5 N WABASH AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.0 kg/sqft Lowest 10%	679 tons Lowest 40%
242-Senior Suites Chicago Wright Campus 4245 N OAK PARK AVE	Senior Living Community	4.0 kg/sqft Lowest 10%	219 tons Lowest 3%
Manchester Building Lofts Condominium Association 2033 2045 W CHARLESTON ST	Multifamily Housing	4.0 kg/sqft Lowest 10%	210 tons Lowest 3%
Josephinum Academy 1501 N Oakley Blvd	K-12 School	4.0 kg/sqft Lowest 10%	337 tons Lowest 12%
Coliseum Park 1440 S WABASH AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.0 kg/sqft Lowest 10%	251 tons Lowest 5%
1330 N LaSalle 1330 N LASALLE DR	Multifamily Housing	4.0 kg/sqft Lowest 10%	204 tons Lowest 2%
1916-34 W. Winona / 5103-5115 N. Winchester 5101 5111 N WINCHESTER AVE	Multifamily Housing	4.0 kg/sqft Lowest 10%	271 tons Lowest 7%
Park Shore 4302 4312 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	4.0 kg/sqft Lowest 10%	214 tons Lowest 3%
1101 E Hyde Park 1101 1123 E HYDE PARK BLVD	Multifamily Housing	4.0 kg/sqft Lowest 10%	280 tons Lowest 8%
Courtyard on the Boulevard Condominium Association 5101 5113 S INGLESIDE AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	250 tons Lowest 5%
Norweta Apartments - 2611 N Hermitage 2611 N HERMITAGE AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	413 tons Lowest 19%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data