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.)
122 Property LLC 122 S Michigan Ave	Office	8.5 kg/sqft Highest 23%	4,369 tons Highest 8%
303 E. Wacker 303 E Wacker	Office	8.5 kg/sqft Highest 23%	8,594 tons Highest 3%
Central States 8647 W Higgins Road	Office	8.4 kg/sqft Highest 23%	1,248 tons Highest 37%
Gateway West Loop 11 S Green St	Multifamily Housing	8.4 kg/sqft Highest 23%	1,121 tons Highest 41%
118 S Clinton 118 S Clinton St	Office	8.4 kg/sqft Highest 23%	664 tons Lowest 39%
Parish_QuigleyCenter 835 N Rush St	Office	8.4 kg/sqft Highest 23%	705 tons Lowest 42%
Ariel Elementary Community Academy (CPS) 1119 E 46th St	K-12 School	8.4 kg/sqft Highest 23%	1,240 tons Highest 38%
Pulaski International School of Chicago (CPS) 2230 W Mclean Ave	K-12 School	8.4 kg/sqft Highest 23%	871 tons Lowest 50%
Charles G Hammond Elementary School (CPS) 2819 W 21st Pl	K-12 School	8.4 kg/sqft Highest 23%	499 tons Lowest 27%
30 East Huron Condominium Association 30 40 E Huron St	Multifamily Housing	8.4 kg/sqft Highest 23%	4,664 tons Highest 8%
Kinzie Park Tower Condominium Association 501 N Clinton St	Multifamily Housing	8.4 kg/sqft Highest 23%	2,453 tons Highest 17%
Winston Towers II 6833 N Kedzie Ave	Multifamily Housing	8.4 kg/sqft Highest 23%	2,202 tons Highest 20%
T2613 - Chicago Division 1200 N Larrabee St	Commerce de détail	8.4 kg/sqft Highest 23%	1,602 tons Highest 29%
7000-7010 S. Pulaski Road 7000 7010 S Pulaski Rd	Strip Mall	8.4 kg/sqft Highest 23%	541 tons Lowest 30%
Dwight Lofts 642 S Clark St	Multifamily Housing	8.4 kg/sqft Highest 23%	1,654 tons Highest 28%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data