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.)
Washington Courts 5424 W WASHINGTON BLVD	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	734 tons Lowest 43%
Beachwalk Apartments 420 W FULLERTON AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	400 tons Lowest 18%
Lafayette Plaza Housing Cooperative 50 W 71st St	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	1,506 tons Highest 31%
Adler Place 1629 S Prairie Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	2,585 tons Highest 16%
265-Senior Suites of Chatham 8300 S Cottage Grove Ave	Senior Living Community	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	515 tons Lowest 28%
7130 Cyril Court Apartments 7130 S CYRIL CT	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	542 tons Lowest 30%
Clarendon Court Apartments 4500 N CLARENDON AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	736 tons Lowest 43%
Eugenie Terrace on the Park (gn037) 1730 N Clark St	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	3,890 tons Highest 10%
Ascension Living Resurrection Village 7262 W Peterson Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	2,695 tons Highest 15%
Lake Meadows 8 401 E 32nd St	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	2,050 tons Highest 22%
Lake Meadows 9 501 E 32nd St	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	2,046 tons Highest 22%
Hilton Chicago (CHICH) 🚩 720 S Michigan Ave	Hotel	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	13,839 tons #37 Highest
Noble Square Cooperative 1165 N MILWAUKEE AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	1,907 tons Highest 24%
850 N Lakeshore Dr 850 858 N LAKESHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	1,687 tons Highest 28%
The Residences at 950 West Monroe 950 W MONROE ST	Multifamily Housing	6.7 kg/sqft Highest 46%	822 tons Lowest 48%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data