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.)
Third Prairie Shores, LLC 3001 S King Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	1,913 tons Highest 24%
50 E 16th 50 E 16th St	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	1,516 tons Highest 31%
C0500LAR (27945) 500 514 S LARAMIE AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	329 tons Lowest 12%
815 West 63rd Street 815 W 63rd St	Office	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	418 tons Lowest 20%
218 South Wabash Building 218 S Wabash Av	Office	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	733 tons Lowest 43%
1550 State Parkway Condominium Association 1544 1554 N STATE PKWY	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	690 tons Lowest 41%
LaSalle Terrace Condominium Association 1540 N LaSalle St	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	992 tons Highest 46%
Commonwealth Towers Condominium Association 2920 2926 N COMMONWEALTH AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	516 tons Lowest 28%
6900 S. Shore Drive 6900 S SOUTH SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	345 tons Lowest 13%
441 W. Oakdale Apartments 441 W OAKDALE AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	407 tons Lowest 19%
431 Roscoe 429 431 W ROSCOE ST	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	365 tons Lowest 14%
536-552 W. Addison St. 536 552 W ADDISON ST	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	416 tons Lowest 19%
Drexel Towers 4825 4825 S DREXEL BLVD	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	590 tons Lowest 34%
Lewis & O'Malley 25 E Jackson Blvd	College/University	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	2,502 tons Highest 17%
THE SAUSAGE KING OF CHICAGO, LLC 221 E 121ST PL	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Highest 47%	1,013 tons Highest 44%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data