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.)
353 North Clark 🚩 353 N Clark St	Office	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	12,295 tons #48 Highest
Chicago & Kedzie Shopping Center 800 N Kedzie Ave	Strip Mall	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,377 tons Highest 34%
Simpson Living Learning Center-ID# 254167 6333 N Winthrop Ave	Residence Hall/Dormitory	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,042 tons Highest 44%
(IL192) -2500 Lakeview Association 2500 N Lakeview Ave	Multifamily Housing	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,864 tons Highest 25%
Sheridan Park 4536-40 N Magnolia Ave	Multifamily Housing	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	495 tons Lowest 26%
Edelstone Center 6030 S Ellis Ave	Office	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	529 tons Lowest 29%
Kersten Physics Teaching Center 5720 S Ellis Ave	College/University	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	530 tons Lowest 29%
George Westinghouse College Prep (CPS) 3301 W Franklin Blvd	K-12 School	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	2,002 tons Highest 23%
Ascension Living Resurrection Village - Life Center 7370 W Talcott Ave	Senior Living Community	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	796 tons Lowest 46%
21 East Chestnut Condominium Association 21 E CHESTNUT ST	Multifamily Housing	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,094 tons Highest 42%
618 S. Michigan 618 S Michigan Ave	College/University	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	813 tons Lowest 47%
Ivy Apartment at the Imperial 1366 W Fullerton Ave	Senior Living Community	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,667 tons Highest 28%
Michigan Beach Apartments 7251 S SOUTH SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,561 tons Highest 30%
Sheridan Tower 5650 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,115 tons Highest 41%
Arrive Lex - Trinity 2138 S Indiana Ave	Multifamily Housing	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	3,444 tons Highest 11%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data