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.)
Holland Apartments 🏆 240 W 107th Pl	Multifamily Housing	2.6 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	154 tons #27 Lowest in Chicago*
StStan_School 1255 N Noble St	K-12 School	2.6 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	248 tons Lowest 5%
Medinah Temple 600 - 820 N Wabash St	Retail Store	2.6 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	344 tons Lowest 13%
SANS SOUCI CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION 🏆 4825 4835 N CENTRAL AVE	Multifamily Housing	2.6 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	132 tons #19 Lowest in Chicago*
Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship 🏆 3137 S FEDERAL ST	College/University	2.5 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	178 tons Lowest 2%
The Darien 3100 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	2.5 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	891 tons Highest 49%
FULLERTON PARKWAY TOWERS 415 W FULLERTON PKWY	Multifamily Housing	2.5 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	567 tons Lowest 32%
Horizon House (159812) 5733 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	2.5 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	682 tons Lowest 40%
4801 W. Peterson Ave 4801 W Peterson Ave	Office	2.5 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	226 tons Lowest 4%
641 W Lake 641 W Lake St	Office	2.4 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	255 tons Lowest 6%
Atrio Apartments (md104) 1926 1960 W HARRISON ST	Multifamily Housing	2.4 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	591 tons Lowest 34%
Fairmont Chicago, Millennium Park 200 N COLUMBUS DR	Hotel	2.4 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	1,654 tons Highest 28%
Drexel Parc Lofts 4537 S DREXEL BLVD	Multifamily Housing	2.4 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	336 tons Lowest 12%
420 W. Ontario Residential Condominium Association 420 432 W ONTARIO ST	Multifamily Housing	2.4 kg/sqft Lowest 2%	199 tons Lowest 2%
2144 N. Lincoln Park Condominium Association 2144 N Lincoln Park West	Multifamily Housing	2.3 kg/sqft Lowest 1%	667 tons Lowest 40%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data