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.)
Florence Nightingale Elementary School (CPS) 5250 S Rockwell St	K-12 School	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	1,077 tons Highest 42%
Federico Garcia Lorca Elementary School (CPS) 3231 N Springfield	K-12 School	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	802 tons Lowest 46%
Henry Clay Elementary School (CPS) 13221 S Burley	K-12 School	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	621 tons Lowest 36%
Alex Haley Elementary Academy (CPS) 11411 S Eggleston Ave	K-12 School	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	773 tons Lowest 45%
Park Manor Elementary School (CPS) 7037 S Rhodes Ave	K-12 School	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	474 tons Lowest 25%
Evergreen Academy Middle School (CPS) 3537 S Paulina St	K-12 School	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	379 tons Lowest 16%
Gold Coast Galleria 111 W Maple St	Mixed Use Property	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	3,507 tons Highest 11%
Burnham Park Plaza Condo 40 E 9th St	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	3,201 tons Highest 12%
Domestic Violence Courthouse 555 W Harrison St	Courthouse	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	1,417 tons Highest 33%
Huron Pointe Condo Assn 421 433 W HURON ST	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	938 tons Highest 47%
Six N. Michigan 6 N Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	1,755 tons Highest 27%
1430 Lake Shore Drive Building Corporation 1430 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	788 tons Lowest 46%
Burnham 600 600 W Jackson Blvd	Office	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	794 tons Lowest 46%
Victory Centre of Galewood 2370 N Newcastle Ave	Senior Living Community	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	598 tons Lowest 35%
999 Lake Shore Drive 999 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	651 tons Lowest 39%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data