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.)
UIC School of Law 304 S State St	College/University	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	1,682 tons Highest 28%
Club Quarters East Wacker Drive 75 E Wacker Dr	Hotel	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	1,378 tons Highest 34%
Trump 🚩 401 N Wabash Ave	Mixed Use Property	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	16,439 tons #29 Highest
The Residences of 41 E. 8th Street 41 E 8th St	Multifamily Housing	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	2,279 tons Highest 19%
Museum Park Place South 1841 S Calumet Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	2,326 tons Highest 19%
Park Millennium Condominium Association 222 N Columbus Dr	Multifamily Housing	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	4,477 tons Highest 8%
2700 N. Hampden Court Condominium Association 2700 N Hampden Ct	Multifamily Housing	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	864 tons Lowest 50%
740 Fulton Condominium Association 740 W FULTON ST	Multifamily Housing	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	1,273 tons Highest 37%
55 East Erie Condo 55 E Erie St	Multifamily Housing	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	4,216 tons Highest 9%
(IL554-H) - Kinzie Station, Hi-Rise 330 N Jefferson Ct	Multifamily Housing	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	1,732 tons Highest 27%
7300 Venture, LLC 7300 S SOUTH SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	787 tons Lowest 46%
6161-6165 N. Winthrop, L.L.C. 6165 N WINTHROP AVE	Multifamily Housing	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	393 tons Lowest 17%
Fullerton Plaza 1737 - 1829 W Fullerton Ave	Retail Store	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	939 tons Highest 47%
134 N. LaSalle LLC 134 N LaSalle St	Office	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	1,574 tons Highest 30%
The Blackstone Hotel 636 S Michigan Ave	Hotel	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	2,415 tons Highest 18%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data