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.)
Parkview Towers Apartments 5110 S DR MARTIN LUTHER KING JR DR	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Highest 33%	864 tons Lowest 50%
Autumn Green at Wright Campus 4239 N OAKPARK AVE	Senior Living Community	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	962 tons Highest 46%
Crown Center-ID#254166 1001 1025 W Loyola Ave	College/University	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	617 tons Lowest 36%
1010 Lake Shore Drive 1010 N Lake Shore Drive	Multifamily Housing	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	2,989 tons Highest 14%
Benito Juarez Community Academy High School (CPS) 2150 S Laflin St	K-12 School	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	1,927 tons Highest 24%
Walter Payton College Preparatory High School (CPS) 1010 N Wells St	K-12 School	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	1,622 tons Highest 29%
Paul Revere Elementary School (CPS) 1010 E 72nd St	K-12 School	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	609 tons Lowest 35%
Leif Ericson Elementary Scholastic Academy (CPS) 3600 W 5th Ave	K-12 School	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	555 tons Lowest 31%
8 S. Michigan LLC 8 S Michigan Ave	Office	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	1,346 tons Highest 35%
James Kilmer Condo Association 1560 N Sandburg Ter	Multifamily Housing	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	5,617 tons Highest 6%
Fourth Prairie Shores, LLC 2851 S King Dr	Multifamily Housing	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	2,168 tons Highest 20%
Atwater Apartments 355 E Ohio St	Multifamily Housing	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	4,284 tons Highest 8%
The Montrose (Pensacola) (ps49) 4334 N Hazel St	Multifamily Housing	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	3,341 tons Highest 11%
227-Senior Suites-Belmont Cragin 6045 W GRAND AVE	Senior Living Community	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	448 tons Lowest 22%
Uptown Regency 5046 5052 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	7.5 kg/sqft Highest 34%	872 tons Lowest 50%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data