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.)
611 S. Wells Street Condo (The Vetro) 611 S Wells St	Multifamily Housing	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	2,252 tons Highest 19%
Hampton Inn Majestic 22 W Monroe St	Hotel	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	547 tons Lowest 31%
Mondial River West 910 W Huron St	Multifamily Housing	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	1,335 tons Highest 35%
CICS - Larry Hawkins High School (CPS) 801 E 133rd Pl	K-12 School	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	1,131 tons Highest 40%
The Silver Tower Chicago Condominium Association 303 W Ohio St	Multifamily Housing	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	2,239 tons Highest 19%
400 East Ohio Condominium Association 400 E Ohio St	Multifamily Housing	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	2,212 tons Highest 20%
Hyatt Place Chicago / South 5225 S HARPER AVE	Hotel	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	665 tons Lowest 39%
130 S Jefferson 130 S Jefferson St	Office	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	615 tons Lowest 36%
Sullivan Center-ID# 173858 6339 N Sheridan Rd	Mixed Use Property	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	1,008 tons Highest 45%
339 W. Barry Condominium Association 337 339 W BARRY AVE	Multifamily Housing	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	921 tons Highest 48%
Ambassador House Condominium Association 1317 1325 N STATE PKWY	Multifamily Housing	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	1,492 tons Highest 32%
601 South LaSalle 601 S LaSalle St	Office	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	469 tons Lowest 24%
Reside on Barry 533 549 W BARRY AVE	Multifamily Housing	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	884 tons Highest 49%
605 N Michigan Ave 605 N Michigan Ave	Office	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	821 tons Lowest 47%
Freehand Hotel Chicago 19 E OHIO ST	Hotel	7.8 kg/sqft Highest 30%	569 tons Lowest 33%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data