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.)
Alice B. Sharp Building 37 S Wabash Ave	College/University	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	2,033 tons Highest 22%
International Tower 8550 W Bryn Mawr Ave	Office	8.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	2,758 tons Highest 15%
Cobb Hall 5811 - 5827 S Ellis Ave	College/University	8.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	703 tons Lowest 41%
Lake Meadows Shopping Center - (LA Fitness - Building 2) 3445 3481 S King Dr	Fitness Center/Health Club/Gym	8.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	533 tons Lowest 29%
Cesar E Chavez Multicultural Academic Center ES (CPS) 4747 S Marshfield Ave	K-12 School	8.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	602 tons Lowest 35%
R. J. QUINN ACADEMY (FIRE) 558 W De Koven St	Adult Education	8.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	587 tons Lowest 34%
Winchester Hood Garden Homes Trust R-704 1940 1960 W HOOD AVE	Multifamily Housing	8.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	644 tons Lowest 38%
InterContinental 🚩 505 N Michigan Ave	Hotel	8.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	6,324 tons Highest 5%
600 Fulton Owner, LLC 600 W Fulton St	Office	8.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	2,084 tons Highest 22%
Newberry Library 60 W Walton St	Library	8.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	1,766 tons Highest 27%
CC Care (Community Care Center) 4314 S Wabash Ave	Senior Living Community	8.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	549 tons Lowest 31%
The Claridge at Cicero 4437 S CICERO AVE	Senior Living Community	8.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	870 tons Lowest 50%
Clarendon Shores 4750 N CLARENDON AVE	Multifamily Housing	8.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	450 tons Lowest 22%
FBI Chicago Field Office 2111 W Roosevelt Rd	Office	8.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	4,029 tons Highest 9%
Norville Center - Gentile Center-ID#254171 6526 N Winthrop	College/University	8.7 kg/sqft Highest 21%	1,115 tons Highest 41%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data