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.)
626 West Jackson 626 W Jackson Blvd	Office	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	829 tons Lowest 48%
Sheridan Lake 6401 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	469 tons Lowest 24%
Arthur J. Schmitt Academic Center 2320 N Kenmore Ave	College/University	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	1,135 tons Highest 40%
Lake Vista Apartments 1430 S INDIANA AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	2,298 tons Highest 19%
1765 N Elston Ave 1765 N ELSTON AVE	Office	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	889 tons Highest 49%
Asbury Plaza Venture LLLP 750 N Dearborn St	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	2,479 tons Highest 17%
Algonquin #6 1606 E Hyde Park Blvd	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	407 tons Lowest 19%
Old Republic Building 301 - 317 N Michigan Ave	Office	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	1,514 tons Highest 31%
Academy of General Dentistry 560 - 566 W Lake St	Office	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	775 tons Lowest 45%
1747 W. Roosevelt 1747 W ROOSEVELT RD	Office	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	1,070 tons Highest 43%
260-Senior Suites of Bridgeport 2825 S HALSTED	Senior Living Community	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	481 tons Lowest 25%
CASL Senior Housing 2108 S PRINCETON AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	474 tons Lowest 25%
5401 S HYDE PARK CONDOMINIUM 5401 S HYDE PARK BLVD	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	579 tons Lowest 33%
701190 - 1000 West Fulton Market 1000 W Fulton St	Office	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	3,855 tons Highest 10%
332 Property LLC 332 S Michigan Ave	Office	6.9 kg/sqft Highest 42%	3,656 tons Highest 10%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data