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.)
Marine Leadership Academy at Ames (CPS) 1920 N Hamlin Ave	K-12 School	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	806 tons Lowest 47%
William H Ryder Math & Science Specialty ES (CPS) 8716 S Wallace St	K-12 School	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	471 tons Lowest 24%
1242 Lake Shore Drive 1242 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	870 tons Lowest 50%
100 E Huron CA 100 E Huron St	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	3,234 tons Highest 12%
Harbor House Condominium Association 3200 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	2,736 tons Highest 15%
Wilson Yard 1026 - 1032 W Montrose Ave	Mixed Use Property	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	2,664 tons Highest 16%
SULZER LIBRARY (Chicago) 4455 N Lincoln Ave	Library	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	534 tons Lowest 30%
Winston Towers V Condominium Association 7141 N Kedzie Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	1,857 tons Highest 25%
253 East Delaware Condominium Association 253 E DELAWARE PL	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	919 tons Highest 48%
University Station CA 1550 S Blue Island Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	1,897 tons Highest 24%
Kingsbury on the Park 653 N Kingsbury St	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	1,777 tons Highest 26%
Michigan Avenue Tower II Condominium Association 1400 S Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	2,188 tons Highest 20%
5107 S Blackstone 5107 S. Blackstone Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	533 tons Lowest 30%
Flair Tower 222 W Erie St	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	1,629 tons Highest 29%
river point 444 W Lake St	Office	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	7,932 tons Highest 4%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data