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.)
Cook Brothers 1740 N Kostner Ave	Retail Store	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 15%	1,081 tons Highest 42%
Marillac Soical Center 212 S Francisco Ave	Pre-school/Daycare	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 15%	1,041 tons Highest 44%
Interwest Chicago Hotel LLC dba Claridge House 1244 N Dearborn St	Hotel	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 15%	842 tons Lowest 48%
West Side Realty Corporation 1645 W Jackson Blvd	Medical Office	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 15%	1,274 tons Highest 37%
3335 W Diversey Ave AKA 2769-2789 N Milwaukee Ave 2769 2789 N MILWAUKEE AVE	Multifamily Housing	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 15%	501 tons Lowest 27%
303 W Erie 303 W Erie St	Office	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 15%	522 tons Lowest 29%
55 E. Jackson Acquisitions LLC 55 E Jackson Blvd	Office	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 15%	4,349 tons Highest 8%
111 N Canal 111 N Canal St	Office	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 15%	9,807 tons Highest 3%
Steeple Center 4916 4938 S KEDZIE AVE	Strip Mall	9.9 kg/sqft Highest 16%	849 tons Lowest 49%
Kinzie State Condo Association 360 N STATE ST	Other	9.9 kg/sqft Highest 16%	751 tons Lowest 44%
123 Madison 123 W Madison St	Office	9.9 kg/sqft Highest 16%	894 tons Highest 49%
The Clare 55 E Pearson St	Multifamily Housing	9.9 kg/sqft Highest 16%	6,227 tons Highest 5%
Columbus Plaza Venture LLC 233 E Wacker Dr	Multifamily Housing	9.9 kg/sqft Highest 16%	4,412 tons Highest 8%
CDM Center 243 S Wabash Ave	College/University	9.9 kg/sqft Highest 16%	1,828 tons Highest 25%
645 North Michigan 645 N Michigan Ave	Office	9.9 kg/sqft Highest 16%	2,147 tons Highest 21%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data