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.)
Earl Shapiro Hall 5800 S Stony Island Ave	K-12 School	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	1,008 tons Highest 45%
The Shoreham at Lakeshore East 400 E South Water St	Multifamily Housing	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	3,303 tons Highest 12%
1155 E 60th Street (UChicago) 1155 E 60th St	College/University	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	1,434 tons Highest 33%
250-Senior Suites of Auburn Gresham 1050 W 79TH ST	Senior Living Community	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	468 tons Lowest 24%
226-Senior Suites-Gage Park 3244 W 59TH ST	Senior Living Community	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	461 tons Lowest 23%
601 Condominium 601 E 32ND ST	Multifamily Housing	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	1,460 tons Highest 32%
401 N Michigan Avenue 401 N Michigan Ave	Office	7.7 kg/sqft Highest 31%	6,732 tons Highest 5%
Hyatt House West Loop/Fulton Market 105 N MAY ST	Hotel	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	1,124 tons Highest 41%
Everett McKinley Dirksen Elementary School 8601 W Foster Avenue	K-12 School	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	929 tons Highest 48%
110 NC LLC 110 N Carpenter	Office	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	4,884 tons Highest 7%
Burnham Pointe 730 South Clark Street	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	3,266 tons Highest 12%
The Catalyst 123 N Desplaines St	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	1,934 tons Highest 24%
Logan Arts Center 915 E 60th St	Performing Arts	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	1,444 tons Highest 32%
Enrico Tonti Elementary School (CPS) 5815 S Homan Ave	K-12 School	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	678 tons Lowest 40%
George Armstrong International Studies ES (CPS) 2110 W Greenleaf Ave	K-12 School	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	1,112 tons Highest 41%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data