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.)
121 West Wacker Drive 🚩 221 N LaSalle St	Office	11.7 kg/sqft Highest 11%	6,070 tons Highest 5%
Grace Shores 639 W GRACE ST	Multifamily Housing	11.7 kg/sqft Highest 11%	620 tons Lowest 36%
Old Town Park - Phase 2 202 W Hill Street	Multifamily Housing	11.6 kg/sqft Highest 11%	3,318 tons Highest 12%
Villa at Windsor Park 2649 E 75th St	Senior Living Community	11.6 kg/sqft Highest 11%	1,137 tons Highest 40%
Lake Meadows 2 533 E 33RD PL	Multifamily Housing	11.6 kg/sqft Highest 11%	1,248 tons Highest 37%
Palmolive Building Condominium Association 913 - 921 N Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	11.6 kg/sqft Highest 11%	4,601 tons Highest 8%
Lake Meadows 1 555 E 33RD PL	Multifamily Housing	11.5 kg/sqft Highest 11%	1,241 tons Highest 38%
Central Plaza Residential Home 321 N CENTRAL AVE	Residential Care Facility	11.5 kg/sqft Highest 11%	809 tons Lowest 47%
Lurie Children's Faculty Office Building 155 E Superior St	Office	11.5 kg/sqft Highest 11%	949 tons Highest 47%
Charles Allen Prosser Career Academy High School (CPS) 2148 N Long Ave	K-12 School	11.4 kg/sqft Highest 11%	2,390 tons Highest 18%
Centennial Hall (DePaul) 2345 N Sheffield Ave	College/University	11.4 kg/sqft Highest 11%	1,014 tons Highest 44%
Goodman Theatre 56 60 W Randolph St	Office	11.4 kg/sqft Highest 11%	580 tons Lowest 33%
06620-Chicago, IL 700 N Michigan Ave	Retail Store	11.4 kg/sqft Highest 11%	2,020 tons Highest 22%
BAI Century, LLC 2828 N Clark St	Enclosed Mall	11.4 kg/sqft Highest 11%	1,991 tons Highest 23%
Point at Clark 3131 N Clark St	Strip Mall	11.4 kg/sqft Highest 11%	1,086 tons Highest 42%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data