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.)
COakdale Towers 431 W OAKDALE AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	534 tons Lowest 30%
133 N Jefferson 565 W Randolph St	Office	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	327 tons Lowest 12%
St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church 2727 W WINONA ST	Worship Facility	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	247 tons Lowest 5%
6101 North Clark 6101 6111 N CLARK ST	Multifamily Housing	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	207 tons Lowest 3%
420 W. Grand Condo Association 420 W GRAND AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	456 tons Lowest 23%
Madison 949 W MADISON	Multifamily Housing	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	513 tons Lowest 28%
The Altgeld Commons Lofts Condominium Association 2512 N BOSWORTH AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	210 tons Lowest 3%
THE GREENWOOD CONDOMINIUM 🏆 4720 4726 S GREENWOOD AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	211 tons Lowest 3%
Constellation Condominium Association 1555 N DEARBORN PKWY	Multifamily Housing	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	499 tons Lowest 27%
Sheridan Lakeside Condo Association 6245 6259 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	274 tons Lowest 7%
2970 Lake Shore Drive 2970 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	540 tons Lowest 30%
Silver Cloud Condominiums 5346 5350 S CORNELL AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.9 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	518 tons Lowest 28%
5252 5252 S CORNELL AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.8 kg/sqft Lowest 8%	1,268 tons Highest 37%
Breckinridge House 🏆 1442 E. 59th Street	Residence Hall/Dormitory	3.8 kg/sqft Lowest 8%	195 tons Lowest 2%
Frances Larry Apartments 824 832 E 53rd St	Multifamily Housing	3.8 kg/sqft Lowest 8%	233 tons Lowest 4%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data