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.)
The National (CPS) 125 S Clark St	Office	7.4 kg/sqft Highest 35%	4,281 tons Highest 9%
333 South Wabash 🚩 333 S Wabash Ave	Office	7.4 kg/sqft Highest 35%	10,503 tons Highest 2%
236-Senior Suites of Rainbow Beach 2804 E 77TH PL	Senior Living Community	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	440 tons Lowest 21%
Spoke 728 N Morgan St	Multifamily Housing	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	2,554 tons Highest 17%
Campion Hall-ID# 254165 6551 N Sheridan Rd	Residence Hall/Dormitory	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	590 tons Lowest 34%
Henry D Lloyd Elementary School (CPS) 2103 N Lamon Ave	K-12 School	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	1,095 tons Highest 42%
Johnson College Prep 6350 S Stewart St	K-12 School	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	468 tons Lowest 24%
Johann W von Goethe Elementary School (CPS) 2236 N Rockwell Ave	K-12 School	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	582 tons Lowest 34%
George B McClellan Elementary School (CPS) 3527 S Wallace St	K-12 School	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	423 tons Lowest 20%
Erie on the Park 510 W Erie St	Multifamily Housing	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	1,425 tons Highest 33%
THC YT LLC 2701 S Indiana Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	2,423 tons Highest 18%
5445 Edgewater Plaza Condominium Association 5445 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	3,126 tons Highest 13%
Hampden Tower Condominium Association 2754 N HAMPDEN CT	Multifamily Housing	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	896 tons Highest 49%
21 W. Chestnut Condominium Association 21 W Chestnut St	Multifamily Housing	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	1,242 tons Highest 38%
1410 North State Parkway Condominium Association 1410 N STATE PKWY	Multifamily Housing	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	879 tons Lowest 50%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data