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.)
287 - Home2 Suites - Chicago River North 110 W Huron St	Hotel	10.5 kg/sqft Highest 13%	1,243 tons Highest 38%
Damen Student Center-ID#254161 6511 N Sheridan Rd	College/University	10.5 kg/sqft Highest 13%	1,129 tons Highest 41%
O'Hare Building 804 (Aviation Administration Building) 10510 W Zemke Rd	Office	10.5 kg/sqft Highest 13%	1,749 tons Highest 27%
ENGLEWOOD HEALTH CENTER (Chicago) 641 W 63rd St	Outpatient Rehabilitation/Physical Therapy	10.5 kg/sqft Highest 13%	568 tons Lowest 33%
The Renaissance at 87th St 2940 W 87TH ST	Senior Living Community	10.5 kg/sqft Highest 13%	705 tons Lowest 41%
401 South Clinton 401 S Clinton St	Office	10.5 kg/sqft Highest 13%	1,723 tons Highest 27%
The Maxwell BU#21157 1100 S Canal St	Strip Mall	10.5 kg/sqft Highest 13%	2,511 tons Highest 17%
The Loftrium 815 823 S WABASH AVE	Office	10.5 kg/sqft Highest 13%	1,004 tons Highest 45%
ECD Streeterville Hotel LLC 216 E ONTARIO ST	Hotel	10.5 kg/sqft Highest 13%	933 tons Highest 48%
Scholars Corner Apartments 5100 5110 S CORNELL AVE	Multifamily Housing	10.5 kg/sqft Highest 13%	632 tons Lowest 37%
Mark Twain Hotel 101 113 W DIVISION ST	Multifamily Housing	10.5 kg/sqft Highest 13%	611 tons Lowest 35%
Rachel Carson Elementary School (CPS) 5516 S Maplewood Ave	K-12 School	10.4 kg/sqft Highest 14%	1,431 tons Highest 33%
11 East Adams LLC 11 E Adams St	Office	10.4 kg/sqft Highest 14%	1,672 tons Highest 28%
Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences (CPS) 3807 W 111th St	K-12 School	10.4 kg/sqft Highest 14%	1,994 tons Highest 23%
South Sauganash Condo Assoc (6000-6038 N. Cicero Ave.) 6000 6038 N CICERO AVE	Multifamily Housing	10.4 kg/sqft Highest 14%	2,339 tons Highest 18%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data