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.)
Michigan Avenue Associates LLC 2001 S Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	3,202 tons Highest 12%
1251/1255 S. Michigan 1255 S Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	4,003 tons Highest 9%
The Streeter - Village Green 345 E Ohio St	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	5,084 tons Highest 7%
00806-Brookdale Lake Shore Drive 2960 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	2,836 tons Highest 14%
1111 N. Dearborn Apartments 1111 N. Dearborn St	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	2,139 tons Highest 21%
Kennedy Plaza BK, L.L.C. 3300 W Belmont Ave	Strip Mall	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	502 tons Lowest 27%
768 West Jackson, LLC 766 778 W JACKSON BLVD	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	365 tons Lowest 14%
Wentworth Commons 11045 S WENTWORTH	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	446 tons Lowest 22%
Kenwood Academy High School (CPS) 5015 S Blackstone Ave	K-12 School	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	1,775 tons Highest 27%
One North State 1 N State St	Office	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	5,369 tons Highest 6%
135 S LaSalle Property LLC 🚩 135 S LaSalle St	Office	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	10,108 tons Highest 2%
151 North Franklin 151 N Franklin St	Office	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	6,190 tons Highest 5%
515 North State 515 N STATE ST	Office	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	4,916 tons Highest 7%
Buena Shores 833 W BUENA AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	1,213 tons Highest 38%
Lake Park Crescent Associates 1, LP (CHA) 1061 E 41ST PL	Multifamily Housing	6.5 kg/sqft Highest 49%	696 tons Lowest 41%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data