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.)
R+D 659 Condominium Association 659 W Randolph St	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	2,153 tons Highest 21%
The Mayfair 1660 E 55TH ST	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	670 tons Lowest 40%
2040 Belmont LLC 2040 2044 W BELMONT AVE	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	368 tons Lowest 15%
5110 S Kenwood 5110 S KENWOOD AVE	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	394 tons Lowest 17%
Sacred Heart Home Inc 1550 S ALBANY AVE	Residential Care Facility	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	504 tons Lowest 27%
1260 Dearborn 1260 N DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	728 tons Lowest 43%
Lincoln Park Plaza 600 W Diversey Pkwy	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	1,885 tons Highest 24%
Courtyard Chicago Downtown Mag Mile 165 E Ontario St	Hotel	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	2,000 tons Highest 23%
33 West Monroe 33 W Monroe St	Office	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	7,591 tons Highest 4%
Rice Building 815 W Van Buren St	Office	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	561 tons Lowest 32%
2424 N Clark St 2424 N CLARK ST	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	450 tons Lowest 22%
1040 West Randolph 1040 W Randolph St	Office	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	388 tons Lowest 17%
Parc Chestnut Condominium Association 849 N Franklin St	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	2,663 tons Highest 16%
Peterson Plaza Tower 5969 N RAVENSWOOD AVE	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	578 tons Lowest 33%
Barton Senior Residences of Chicago 1245 S WOOD ST	Senior Living Community	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	582 tons Lowest 34%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data