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.)
David Rubenstein Forum 1201 E 60TH ST	Convention Center	11.3 kg/sqft Highest 11%	1,102 tons Highest 42%
5141 N Christiana Ave. 5141 N Christiana Ave	College/University	11.3 kg/sqft Highest 11%	1,143 tons Highest 40%
HHCS ICRC 3500 S GILES AVE	Residential Care Facility	11.3 kg/sqft Highest 11%	797 tons Lowest 46%
Harlem-Foster Shopping Center 7240 W Foster Ave	Strip Mall	11.3 kg/sqft Highest 11%	3,104 tons Highest 13%
Crerar Library (UChicago) 5730 S Ellis Ave	Library	11.2 kg/sqft Highest 11%	1,881 tons Highest 24%
McCabe Hall 900 W Belden Ave	College/University	11.2 kg/sqft Highest 11%	656 tons Lowest 39%
NBC Tower 🚩 455 N Cityfront Plaza Dr	Office	11.2 kg/sqft Highest 11%	10,498 tons Highest 2%
Gunsaulus Hall 3140 S Michigan Avenue	Residence Hall/Dormitory	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 12%	924 tons Highest 48%
180 North Wabash LLC 180 N Wabash Ave	Office	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 12%	1,806 tons Highest 26%
F.H. Paschen, S.N. Nielsen & Associates, LLC 8734 W Catalpa	Office	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 12%	1,253 tons Highest 37%
Lake Meadows 4 3440 S COTTAGE GROVE AVE	Multifamily Housing	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 12%	1,195 tons Highest 39%
St. Bernard Ambulatory Care Center 6307 S STEWART AVE	Medical Office	11.0 kg/sqft Highest 12%	735 tons Lowest 43%
280 Building 280 S Columbus Dr	College/University	11.0 kg/sqft Highest 12%	1,561 tons Highest 30%
HI Chicago 24 E Congress Pkwy	Hotel	11.0 kg/sqft Highest 12%	1,104 tons Highest 41%
Lake Meadows 6 500 E 33rd St	Multifamily Housing	11.0 kg/sqft Highest 12%	3,332 tons Highest 11%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data