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.)
The Metropolitan Place Condominium Association 130 S Canal St	Multifamily Housing	3.6 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	2,046 tons Highest 22%
Beacon Lofts 203 S SANGAMON ST	Multifamily Housing	3.6 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	280 tons Lowest 8%
4553 N Magnolia 1217 1227 W WILSON AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.6 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	235 tons Lowest 4%
Sangamon Lofts Condominium Association 913 921 W VAN BUREN ST	Multifamily Housing	3.6 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	640 tons Lowest 38%
Vista Homes Building Corporation 5844 S Stony Island Ave	Multifamily Housing	3.6 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	938 tons Highest 47%
River Bank Lofts Condominium Association 550 N Kingsbury St	Multifamily Housing	3.6 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	920 tons Highest 48%
21 W Goethe 11 21 W GOETHE ST	Multifamily Housing	3.6 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	901 tons Highest 49%
1247-1249 West Madison LLC 1247 1249 W MADISON ST	Multifamily Housing	3.6 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	557 tons Lowest 32%
232 E Walton Corporation 228 240 E WALTON ST	Multifamily Housing	3.6 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	379 tons Lowest 16%
The Sexton Condominium Association 360 W Illinois St	Multifamily Housing	3.6 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	1,390 tons Highest 34%
Wrightwood 625 W WRIGHTWOOD AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.6 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	315 tons Lowest 11%
4400 Grove Apartments - North Bldg 4424 S COTTAGE GROVE AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.5 kg/sqft Lowest 6%	197 tons Lowest 2%
Porte Apartments 845 W MADISON ST	Multifamily Housing	3.5 kg/sqft Lowest 6%	1,744 tons Highest 27%
Old Town Village East 1205-1255 N Orleans Court	Multifamily Housing	3.5 kg/sqft Lowest 6%	227 tons Lowest 4%
Park Boulevard IIB 3720 S DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	3.5 kg/sqft Lowest 6%	304 tons Lowest 10%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data