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.)
Ritchie Tower Condominium 1310 N RITCHIE CT	Multifamily Housing	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	1,332 tons Highest 35%
Dearborn I LLC 1034 1038 N DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	525 tons Lowest 29%
33 E Congress 33 E Congress Pkwy	College/University	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	1,130 tons Highest 41%
Inland Steel Building 30 W Monroe	Office	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	2,184 tons Highest 20%
Onni Van Buren Chicago LLC 550 W Van Buren	Office	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	2,418 tons Highest 18%
WASHINGTON FRANKLIN, LLC 309 W Washngton St	Office	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	768 tons Lowest 45%
200 West Jackson Boulevard Building 200 W Jackson Blvd	Office	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	4,025 tons Highest 9%
Accesso 230 W Monroe 230 W Monroe	Office	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	4,947 tons Highest 7%
222 S Riverside Plaza 222 S Riverside Plz	Office	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	9,038 tons Highest 3%
Two North Riverside Plaza 2 N Riverside Plz	Office	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	5,434 tons Highest 6%
233 North Michigan Avenue 🚩 233 N Michigan Ave	Office	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	8,430 tons Highest 3%
DePaul Center (DePaul) 1 E Jackson Blvd	College/University	7.3 kg/sqft Highest 36%	5,096 tons Highest 7%
1515 W Webster, LLC 1515 W Webster Avenue	Office	7.2 kg/sqft Highest 38%	1,557 tons Highest 30%
Regis Hall-ID#254172 6340 N Winthrop Ave	Residence Hall/Dormitory	7.2 kg/sqft Highest 38%	883 tons Lowest 50%
The Bristol Condominium Association 57 E Delaware Pl	Multifamily Housing	7.2 kg/sqft Highest 38%	3,521 tons Highest 11%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data