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.)
Hope College Preparatory High School (CPS) 5515 South Lowe Ave	K-12 School	12.4 kg/sqft Highest 9%	1,984 tons Highest 23%
Student Center (DePaul) 2250 N Sheffield Ave	College/University	12.4 kg/sqft Highest 9%	1,849 tons Highest 25%
Gateway Centre 175603 Building A (Marshalls) 1701 - 1741 W Howard St	Strip Mall	12.4 kg/sqft Highest 9%	827 tons Lowest 48%
1111 N. Clark St. 1111 N Clark St	Automobile Dealership	12.4 kg/sqft Highest 9%	1,118 tons Highest 41%
McCormick Tribune Campus Center (MTCC) 📷 (Illinois Tech) 3201 S State Street	College/University	12.3 kg/sqft Highest 9%	1,151 tons Highest 40%
Lakeside Terrace 7425 S South Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	12.3 kg/sqft Highest 9%	682 tons Lowest 40%
Thomas P. Levan Center 2322 N Kenmore Ave	College/University	12.3 kg/sqft Highest 9%	647 tons Lowest 38%
Aviation Lofts 1340 S MICHIGAN AVE	Multifamily Housing	12.3 kg/sqft Highest 9%	614 tons Lowest 36%
The Selfhelp Home, Inc. 908 920 W ARGYLE ST	Senior Living Community	12.3 kg/sqft Highest 9%	1,804 tons Highest 26%
W Chicago City Center 172 W Adams St	Hotel	12.3 kg/sqft Highest 9%	2,986 tons Highest 14%
Womans Athletic Club Chicago 626 640 N Michigan	Social/Meeting Hall	12.3 kg/sqft Highest 9%	1,049 tons Highest 43%
Clayton Residential Home Inc 2026 N CLARK ST	Residential Care Facility	12.3 kg/sqft Highest 9%	760 tons Lowest 45%
Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center 🚨 836 W Wellington Ave	Hospital (General Medical & Surgical)	12.3 kg/sqft Highest 9%	16,172 tons #30 Highest
Siegel Hall (Illinois Tech) 3301 S State Street	College/University	12.2 kg/sqft Highest 9%	775 tons Lowest 45%
Viceroy Chicago 1118 N State Street	Hotel	12.2 kg/sqft Highest 9%	1,638 tons Highest 29%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data