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.)
Adult Rehabilitation Center - Clybourn 2258 N Clybourn Ave	Residential Care Facility	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	395 tons Lowest 18%
The Tides at Lakeshore East 360 E South Water St	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	3,666 tons Highest 10%
Erie Centre Condo 375 425 W Erie St	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	3,083 tons Highest 13%
Prairie House at Central Station 1515 S Prairie Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	2,085 tons Highest 22%
Chicago Theological Seminary 1407 E 60th St	College/University	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	609 tons Lowest 35%
1819 S Michigan Avenue Condominium Association 1819 S MICHIGAN AVE	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	873 tons Lowest 50%
Campbell Terrace 2061 N CAMPBELL AVE	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	1,065 tons Highest 43%
1240 Lake Shore Drive 1240 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	1,145 tons Highest 40%
Thorndale Manor Apartments 1020 W THORNDALE AVE	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	418 tons Lowest 20%
200 N Central 200 N CENTRAL AVE	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	380 tons Lowest 16%
LondonHouse Chicago 360 N Michigan Ave	Hotel	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	2,968 tons Highest 14%
The Rookery Building 209 S LaSalle St	Office	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	2,558 tons Highest 16%
Onni 200 LaSalle 200 N LaSalle Ave	Office	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	5,310 tons Highest 6%
200 South Wacker Property LLC 200 S Wacker Dr	Office	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	6,374 tons Highest 5%
111 East Wacker Drive 111 E Wacker Dr	Office	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	8,619 tons Highest 3%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data