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.)
The Talbott Hotel 20 E Delaware Pl	Hotel	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	863 tons Lowest 49%
George B Swift Elementary Specialty School (CPS) 5900 N Winthrop Ave	K-12 School	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	885 tons Highest 49%
Tarkington School of Excellence ES (CPS) 3330 W 71st St	K-12 School	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	1,105 tons Highest 41%
Esmond Elementary School (CPS) 1865 W Montvale Ave	K-12 School	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	434 tons Lowest 21%
Providence Englewood Charter School 6515 S Ashland Ave	K-12 School	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	433 tons Lowest 21%
Disney II Magnet Elemenatary School (CPS) 3815 N Kedvale Ave	K-12 School	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	411 tons Lowest 19%
Seton Hall 2325 N Sheffield Ave	College/University	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	408 tons Lowest 19%
Belden-Racine Hall 2311 N Racine Ave	College/University	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	556 tons Lowest 32%
NMH 211 East Ontario 211 E Ontario St	Office	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	1,516 tons Highest 31%
Wells Street Tower Condominium Association 701 S Wells St	Multifamily Housing	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	2,176 tons Highest 20%
Faulkner House Condominium Association 70 W Burton Pl	Multifamily Housing	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	1,723 tons Highest 28%
The Buckingham Condominium Association 360 E Randolph St	Multifamily Housing	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	4,118 tons Highest 9%
229-Senior Suites-Austin 335 N MENARD AVE	Senior Living Community	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	484 tons Lowest 26%
The Shelby - Village Green 2300 S MICHIGAN AVE	Multifamily Housing	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	910 tons Highest 48%
8598 - LINCOLN & MCCORMICK 6211 N LINCOLN AVE	Retail Store	8.1 kg/sqft Highest 26%	929 tons Highest 48%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data