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.)
Madden Wells Ph 1A 3744-54 S ELLIS AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.2 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	639 tons Lowest 38%
Schreiber Center- ID#254355 16 E PEARSON ST	College/University	3.2 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	409 tons Lowest 19%
Moser Building Condominium Association 621 S Plymouth Ct	Multifamily Housing	3.2 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	470 tons Lowest 24%
343 W Erie St 343 W. Erie St	Office	3.2 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	275 tons Lowest 7%
Patrick Henry Elementary School (CPS) 4250 N St Louis Ave	K-12 School	3.2 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	284 tons Lowest 8%
Park Newberry 55 W Delaware Pl	Multifamily Housing	3.2 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	841 tons Lowest 48%
Bronzeville Lofts 50 E 26TH ST	Multifamily Housing	3.2 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	295 tons Lowest 9%
Cosmopolitan Lofts Condominium Association 1133 1137 S WABASH AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.2 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	326 tons Lowest 11%
Marshfield Lofts 1734 1740 N MARSHFIELD AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.2 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	229 tons Lowest 4%
Catalyst-Maria 6727 S California Ave	K-12 School	3.2 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	557 tons Lowest 32%
1300 Dearborn 1300 1310 N DEARBORN ST	Retail Store	3.2 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	191 tons Lowest 2%
4039-43 N Ravenswood LLC 4043 N Ravenswood Ave	Other	3.2 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	292 tons Lowest 9%
5527-5541 N. Kenmore, LLC 5527 5539 N KENMORE AVE	Multifamily Housing	3.2 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	251 tons Lowest 5%
360 West Condo Association 360 W Erie Street	Multifamily Housing	3.1 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	521 tons Lowest 28%
350 W Belden 350 W Belden Ave	Multifamily Housing	3.1 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	438 tons Lowest 21%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data