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.)
125 South Wacker 125 S Wacker Dr	Office	7.1 kg/sqft Highest 39%	4,583 tons Highest 8%
Leo Burnett Building 🚩 35 W Wacker Dr	Office	7.1 kg/sqft Highest 39%	9,826 tons Highest 3%
Addison & Clark (dd020) 1025 W Addison St	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	1,823 tons Highest 25%
Eight O Five (gh04) 805 N LA SALLE DR	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	1,892 tons Highest 24%
Lawndale Christian Health and Fitness Center 3750 W OGDEN AVE	Mixed Use Property	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	450 tons Lowest 22%
Mercy Circle 3659 W 99TH ST	Residential Care Facility	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	1,028 tons Highest 44%
Porta Coeli Residence 2260 E 99th St	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	556 tons Lowest 32%
Willow Square (Bldg. 1) 1728 N Damen Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	629 tons Lowest 37%
A.N. Pritzker School (CPS) 2009 W Schiller St	K-12 School	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	463 tons Lowest 23%
Alfred Nobel Elementary School (CPS) 4127 W Hirsch St	K-12 School	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	533 tons Lowest 29%
Julia Ward Howe Elementary School of Excellence (CPS) 720 N Lorel Ave	K-12 School	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	484 tons Lowest 26%
Franklin Elementary Fine Arts Center (CPS) 225 W Evergreen Ave	K-12 School	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	371 tons Lowest 15%
142 East Ontario 142 E Ontario St	Office	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	989 tons Highest 46%
2400 Lakeview Condo 2400 N Lakeview Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	2,058 tons Highest 22%
The 3600 Condominium Association 🚩 3600 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	5,446 tons Highest 6%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data