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.)
Stephen K Hayt Elementary School (CPS) 1518 W Granville Ave	K-12 School	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	808 tons Lowest 47%
Albany Park Multicultural Academy (CPS) 4929 N Sawyer Ave	K-12 School	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	705 tons Lowest 42%
Scott Joplin Elementary School (CPS) 7931 S Honore St	K-12 School	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	526 tons Lowest 29%
Alexander Graham Bell Elementary School (CPS) 3730 N Oakley Ave	K-12 School	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	758 tons Lowest 44%
Bronzeville Classical Elementary School (CPS) 8 W Root St	K-12 School	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	437 tons Lowest 21%
322 South Green 322 S Green St	Office	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	639 tons Lowest 38%
535 North Michigan 535 N Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	3,052 tons Highest 13%
ParkView at River East Condos 505 N McClurg Ct	Multifamily Housing	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	2,972 tons Highest 14%
1250 N Dearborn Condo Assoc 1250 N DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	1,007 tons Highest 45%
899 South Plymouth Court Condominium Association 899 S Plymouth Ct	Multifamily Housing	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	1,801 tons Highest 26%
Prairie District Homes Tower Residences Condominium Association 1717 S Prairie Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	1,965 tons Highest 23%
401-417 East Oakwood Boulevard 401 417 E OAKWOOD BLVD	Multifamily Housing	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	392 tons Lowest 17%
Evangeline Booth Lodge / Family and Community Services 800 W Lawrence Ave	Hotel	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	483 tons Lowest 26%
77 West Huron Street 77 W Huron St	Multifamily Housing	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	2,120 tons Highest 21%
1063 - Royal Sonesta Chicago Riverfront 71 E Wacker Drive 71 E Wacker Dr	Hotel	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	2,577 tons Highest 16%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data