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.)
Lathrop Elderly 2701 2741 N LEAVITT ST	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	496 tons Lowest 26%
Diversey III LLC 424 W DIVERSEY PKWY	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	553 tons Lowest 31%
Hampden Court Apartments 2740 2750 N HAMPDEN CT	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	439 tons Lowest 21%
Commonwealth Apartments LLC 2751 2765 N PINE GROVE AVE	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	714 tons Lowest 42%
Warwick Allerton Hotel Chicago 136 148 E Huron St	Hotel	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	2,108 tons Highest 21%
10 South LaSalle Street 10 S LaSalle St	Office	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	6,064 tons Highest 5%
Chicago Transit Authority - 567 W Lake Street 567 W Lake St	Office	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	3,025 tons Highest 13%
225 West Washington 225 W Washington St	Office	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	3,692 tons Highest 10%
Michigan Plaza 🚩 205 N Michigan Ave	Office	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	14,426 tons #35 Highest
One North Wacker 🚩 1 N Wacker Dr	Office	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	11,315 tons Highest 2%
71 South Wacker 🚩 71 S Wacker Dr	Office	7.0 kg/sqft Highest 41%	11,756 tons #50 Highest
231-Senior Suites-Garfield Ridge 5839 S HARLEM AVE	Senior Living Community	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	411 tons Lowest 19%
Parker at Fulton Market 730 W COUCH PL	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	1,750 tons Highest 27%
824 West Superior Condominium Association 824 W Superior St	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	453 tons Lowest 22%
Delaware II LLC 25 E Delaware Pl	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	733 tons Lowest 43%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data