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 Private Residences at Ontario Place, a Condominium 10 E Ontario St	Multifamily Housing	12.2 kg/sqft Highest 9%	5,972 tons Highest 5%
Hyde Park Tower (hy000) 5140 S Hyde Park Blvd	Multifamily Housing	12.2 kg/sqft Highest 9%	1,753 tons Highest 27%
South Loop Apartments 1521 S WABASH AVE	Multifamily Housing	12.2 kg/sqft Highest 9%	759 tons Lowest 45%
131 S. Dearborn 3 🚨 131 S Dearborn	Office	12.2 kg/sqft Highest 9%	20,116 tons #15 Highest
Ambassador Nursing & Rehabilitation Center 4900 N Bernard	Senior Living Community	12.1 kg/sqft Highest 10%	693 tons Lowest 41%
Trinity Hospital Physicians Office Building (Formerly Advocate Trinity - POB) 2301 2315 E 93rd St	Medical Office	12.1 kg/sqft Highest 10%	625 tons Lowest 37%
Northside College Preparatory High School (CPS) 5501 N Kedzie Ave	K-12 School	12.1 kg/sqft Highest 10%	2,685 tons Highest 15%
Ascension St Elizabeth Professional Office Building 1431 N Western Ave	Medical Office	12.1 kg/sqft Highest 10%	860 tons Lowest 49%
Lake Meadows 5 3445 S RHODES AVE	Multifamily Housing	12.1 kg/sqft Highest 10%	1,297 tons Highest 36%
1340 S Damen Avenue 1340 S Damen Ave	Office	12.1 kg/sqft Highest 10%	1,935 tons Highest 24%
The Hoxton 200 N Green St	Hotel	12.0 kg/sqft Highest 10%	1,833 tons Highest 25%
Garfield Center 10 S Kedzie Ave	Office	12.0 kg/sqft Highest 10%	751 tons Lowest 44%
Peerless Building 200 210 S HALSTED ST	Office	12.0 kg/sqft Highest 10%	1,385 tons Highest 34%
Millennium Park Plaza 151 - 155 N Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	12.0 kg/sqft Highest 10%	7,350 tons Highest 4%
Union League Club Of Chicago 65 W Jackson Blvd	Hotel	12.0 kg/sqft Highest 10%	3,728 tons Highest 10%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data