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.)
Donald Morrill Math & Science Elementary School (CPS) 6011 S Rockwell St	K-12 School	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	646 tons Lowest 38%
Josefa Ortiz De Dominguez Elementary School (CPS) 3000 S Lawndale Ave	K-12 School	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	413 tons Lowest 19%
Washington Irving Elementary School (CPS) 749 S Oakley Blvd	K-12 School	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	358 tons Lowest 14%
1961 - ELSTON/LEAVITT 2542 Elston Ave	Retail Store	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	776 tons Lowest 45%
700 W. Van Buren Condo 700 W Van Buren	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	802 tons Lowest 47%
Knight Buildling 549 W Randolph St	Office	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	684 tons Lowest 40%
Northwest Armory 1551 N Kedzie Ave	Other	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	1,325 tons Highest 35%
Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy HS (CPS) 250 E 111th St	K-12 School	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	1,727 tons Highest 27%
111 E Chestnut Condominium Association 111 E Chestnut St	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	3,804 tons Highest 10%
Regatta Condominium Association 420 E Waterside Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	2,952 tons Highest 14%
5100 Marine Drive Condominium Association 5100 N Marine Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	1,805 tons Highest 26%
The Deco (nl005) 1400 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	2,127 tons Highest 21%
Fulton House Condominium Association 345-355 N Canal St	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	1,132 tons Highest 40%
River North Park (rv57) 320 W Illinois St	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	3,019 tons Highest 14%
155 North Wacker 155 N Wacker Dr	Office	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	9,169 tons Highest 3%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data