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.)
1914 - DAN RYAN 200 W 87th St	Retail Store	9.5 kg/sqft Highest 17%	988 tons Highest 46%
Courthouse Place 46 64 W Hubbard St	Office	9.5 kg/sqft Highest 17%	1,021 tons Highest 44%
Cook County Department of Corrections Campus 🚨 2700 S California Ave	Prison/Incarceration	9.5 kg/sqft Highest 17%	43,342 tons #5 Highest
The John Hancock Center 🚨 📷 875 N Michigan Ave	Mixed Use Property	9.5 kg/sqft Highest 17%	21,668 tons #11 Highest
Daniel J Corkery Elementary School (CPS) 2510 S Kildare Ave	K-12 School	9.4 kg/sqft Highest 18%	671 tons Lowest 40%
Quadrangle House 6700 S Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	9.4 kg/sqft Highest 18%	2,071 tons Highest 22%
The Duncan 1515 W Monroe St	Multifamily Housing	9.4 kg/sqft Highest 18%	1,210 tons Highest 38%
The Drake, IL-SV 🚩 140 E Walton Pl	Hotel	9.4 kg/sqft Highest 18%	6,066 tons Highest 5%
Saint Vincent Center 721 N Lasalle St	Office	9.4 kg/sqft Highest 18%	891 tons Highest 49%
1903 - BRICKYARD 2555 N Normandy Ave	Retail Store	9.4 kg/sqft Highest 18%	1,293 tons Highest 36%
Goethe Astor Inc 1301 1307 N ASTOR ST	Multifamily Housing	9.4 kg/sqft Highest 18%	463 tons Lowest 24%
SV Care (Southview Manor, Inc.) 3311 S Michigan Ave	Senior Living Community	9.3 kg/sqft Highest 18%	512 tons Lowest 28%
Levi Hall 5801 S Ellis Ave	Office	9.3 kg/sqft Highest 18%	842 tons Lowest 48%
600 S Michigan 600 S Michigan Ave	College/University	9.3 kg/sqft Highest 18%	1,635 tons Highest 29%
Andrew Jackson Elementary Language Academy (CPS) 1340 W Harrison St	K-12 School	9.3 kg/sqft Highest 18%	689 tons Lowest 41%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data