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.)
Museum Park Tower 1 Condominium Association 1322 S Prairie Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	2,208 tons Highest 20%
307 S Sangamon St 307 S Sangamon St	Office	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	578 tons Lowest 33%
530 W. Diversey 530 W DIVERSEY PKWY	Multifamily Housing	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	401 tons Lowest 18%
619-645 East Woodland Park 619 645 E WOODLAND PARK	Multifamily Housing	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	804 tons Lowest 47%
TCB-Midway, LLC 5109 5151 S PULASKI RD	Strip Mall	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	441 tons Lowest 21%
Canterbury Court Apartments 1220 N STATE PKWY	Multifamily Housing	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	784 tons Lowest 46%
Halsted Flats 3740 N Halsted St	Multifamily Housing	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	1,811 tons Highest 26%
4848 North Winthrop Avenue 4848 N Winthrop Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	1,977 tons Highest 23%
DCFS 6201 S Emerald Dr	Other - Public Services	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	636 tons Lowest 38%
Chicago Marriott Downtown 540 N Michigan Ave	Hotel	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	7,460 tons Highest 4%
Chicago Swissotel 323 E Wacker Dr	Hotel	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	5,579 tons Highest 6%
Wabash Building 425 S Wabash Ave	Residence Hall/Dormitory	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	3,255 tons Highest 12%
The Royalle Condominium Association 744 N CLARK ST	Multifamily Housing	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	615 tons Lowest 36%
The 30 West Erie CA 30 W ERIE ST	Multifamily Housing	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	462 tons Lowest 23%
PCC - Chicago 643 N Orleans St	Office	7.9 kg/sqft Highest 29%	425 tons Lowest 20%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data