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.)
CHICAGO PETERSON AVE (2079) 2112 W Peterson Ave	Retail Store	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 19%	1,461 tons Highest 32%
6118 Sheridan Road Condominium Homeowners Association 6118 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 19%	928 tons Highest 48%
190 South LaSalle 190 S LaSalle St	Office	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 19%	8,022 tons Highest 4%
Harris Bank Building 🚩 115 S LaSalle St	Office	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 19%	13,824 tons #38 Highest
Algonquin #1 1605 E 50TH ST	Multifamily Housing	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 19%	539 tons Lowest 30%
412 N Wells 412 N Wells St	Office	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	462 tons Lowest 23%
504 N. Green St. 504 N GREEN ST	Multifamily Housing	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,129 tons Highest 41%
North-Grand High School (CPS) 4330 W Wabansia Ave	K-12 School	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,847 tons Highest 25%
Horace Greeley Elementary School (CPS) 832 W Sheridan Rd	K-12 School	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	545 tons Lowest 31%
101 Grand 101 W Grand Ave	Office	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	558 tons Lowest 32%
Joseph Brennemann Elementary School (CPS) 4251 N Clarendon Ave	K-12 School	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	482 tons Lowest 25%
Winston Towers No. 4 Association 7033 N KEDZIE AVE	Multifamily Housing	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	2,923 tons Highest 14%
Dearborn Elm Condominium Association 1155 N DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	994 tons Highest 45%
Bernard Horwich JCC 3003 3033 W TOUHY AVE	Mixed Use Property	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,494 tons Highest 31%
208 S La Salle Whole Building 208 S LaSalle St	Hotel	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	8,155 tons Highest 4%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data