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.)
141 West Jackson Boulevard 🚩 141 W Jackson Blvd	Office	7.2 kg/sqft Highest 38%	11,290 tons Highest 2%
303 West Madison 303 W Madison St	Office	7.2 kg/sqft Highest 38%	2,484 tons Highest 17%
10 and 30 South Wacker 🚨 10 S Wacker Dr	Office	7.2 kg/sqft Highest 38%	20,681 tons #14 Highest
500 West Monroe 500 W Monroe	Office	7.2 kg/sqft Highest 38%	8,256 tons Highest 4%
Chicago Academy Elementary School (CPS) 3400 N Austin Ave	K-12 School	7.2 kg/sqft Highest 38%	1,818 tons Highest 25%
Landmark West Loop 1035 W Van Buren St	Multifamily Housing	7.1 kg/sqft Highest 39%	1,776 tons Highest 27%
Cudahy Library-ID#254164 6515 N Kenmore Ave	Library	7.1 kg/sqft Highest 39%	880 tons Lowest 50%
Senate Apartments 5801 N Pulaski Rd - Bldg G	Residential Care Facility	7.1 kg/sqft Highest 39%	1,351 tons Highest 35%
Circa 922 922 W Washington Blvd	Multifamily Housing	7.1 kg/sqft Highest 39%	1,113 tons Highest 41%
Oscar DePriest Elementary School (CPS) 139 S Parkside Ave	K-12 School	7.1 kg/sqft Highest 39%	761 tons Lowest 45%
William J Onahan Elementary School (CPS) 6634 W Raven St	K-12 School	7.1 kg/sqft Highest 39%	649 tons Lowest 38%
Dewey Elementary Academy of Fine Arts (CPS) 5401 S Union Ave	K-12 School	7.1 kg/sqft Highest 39%	610 tons Lowest 35%
Paramount Lofts Condominium Association 1645 W Ogden	Multifamily Housing	7.1 kg/sqft Highest 39%	1,951 tons Highest 23%
MWRDGC Main Office Building 100 E Erie St	Office	7.1 kg/sqft Highest 39%	683 tons Lowest 40%
162 North State Street 162 N State St	Residence Hall/Dormitory	7.1 kg/sqft Highest 39%	2,253 tons Highest 19%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data