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.)
Greater Lawndale High School For Social Justice (CPS) 3120 S Kostner Ave	K-12 School	10.8 kg/sqft Highest 12%	3,122 tons Highest 13%
Chicago State University Campus 🚩 9501 S Martin Luther King Dr	College/University	10.8 kg/sqft Highest 12%	12,618 tons #44 Highest
Thompson Center 🚩 100 W Randolph St	Office	10.8 kg/sqft Highest 12%	12,909 tons #42 Highest
New Field Elementary School (CPS) 1707 W Morse Ave	K-12 School	10.7 kg/sqft Highest 13%	912 tons Highest 48%
Orr Academy High School (CPS) 730 N Pulaski Rd	K-12 School	10.7 kg/sqft Highest 13%	3,252 tons Highest 12%
Bell Federal Building 79 W Monroe St	Office	10.7 kg/sqft Highest 13%	2,134 tons Highest 21%
Fullerton Court Apartments 2303 N CLYBOURN AVE	Multifamily Housing	10.7 kg/sqft Highest 13%	1,515 tons Highest 31%
400 West Huron Condominium Association 400 W HURON ST	Multifamily Housing	10.6 kg/sqft Highest 13%	833 tons Lowest 48%
430 W. Erie 430 W Erie St	Office	10.6 kg/sqft Highest 13%	730 tons Lowest 43%
Bookstore (UChicago) 970 E 58th St	Retail Store	10.6 kg/sqft Highest 13%	530 tons Lowest 29%
916 S Wabash 916 S Wabash Ave	College/University	10.6 kg/sqft Highest 13%	705 tons Lowest 42%
29 East Madison LLC 29 E Madison St	Office	10.6 kg/sqft Highest 13%	2,535 tons Highest 17%
The Thompson Building 350 N Clark St	Office	10.6 kg/sqft Highest 13%	1,178 tons Highest 39%
Willis Tower (Rivion LLC) 🚨 📷 233 S Wacker Dr	Office	10.6 kg/sqft Highest 13%	47,947 tons #4 Highest
Addison Mall LLC 2901 W ADDISON ST	Strip Mall	10.6 kg/sqft Highest 13%	731 tons Lowest 43%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data