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.)
Wrightwood I 660 W WRIGHTWOOD AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	262 tons Lowest 6%
20 West Kinzie 20 W Kinzie St	Office	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	2,664 tons Highest 16%
33 North LaSalle Street 33 N LaSalle St	Office	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	3,256 tons Highest 12%
237-Senior Suites of W. Humboldt Park 3656 W HURON ST	Senior Living Community	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	482 tons Lowest 25%
Prudential Plaza 🚩 130 E Randolph St	Office	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	18,670 tons #23 Highest
500 West Madison 🚩 500 W Madison St	Office	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	12,647 tons #43 Highest
311 S. Wacker 🚩 311 S Wacker	Office	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	9,725 tons Highest 3%
Presidents Plaza 2 8700 W Bryn Mawr Ave	Office	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	2,993 tons Highest 14%
777 State 2 E 8th St	Multifamily Housing	6.8 kg/sqft Highest 44%	1,796 tons Highest 26%
3710 N PINE GROVE LLC 3710 N PINE GROVE AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	405 tons Lowest 18%
900 West 904 W Washington Blvd	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	459 tons Lowest 23%
Onni Hudson LP 750 N HUDSON AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	1,966 tons Highest 23%
Delmar Apartments 5042 N. Winthrop	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	392 tons Lowest 17%
Chinatown 300 W 23rd St	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	770 tons Lowest 45%
Pritzker College Prep 4131 W Cortland St	K-12 School	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	440 tons Lowest 21%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data