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.)
Twin Towers Apartments LLC 1649 E 50th Pl	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	1,402 tons Highest 34%
Sheridan-Gunnison Apts. 4827 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	1,047 tons Highest 43%
3130 N. Lake Shore Apartments 3130 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	1,510 tons Highest 31%
Van Buren Park Apartments 2045 W Jackson Blvd	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	1,341 tons Highest 35%
623 S Wabash 623 S Wabash Ave	College/University	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	1,312 tons Highest 36%
250 South Wacker Drive 250 S Wacker Dr	Office	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	1,611 tons Highest 29%
MAM 7301 Sheridan, LLC 7301 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	476 tons Lowest 25%
Elston Industrial lofts, Llc 1737-1747 N Elston Ave	Mixed Use Property	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	541 tons Lowest 30%
29 N Wacker Dr 29 N Wacker Dr	Office	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	884 tons Lowest 50%
N002304-CHICAGO (79TH & CICERO) IL 7971 S CICERO AVE	Retail Store	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	742 tons Lowest 44%
Bloomingdale Apartments 1745 N KEYSTONE AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	660 tons Lowest 39%
3850 W Bryn Mawr 3850 W BRYN MAWR AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	390 tons Lowest 17%
THE WATERGATE EAST CONDOMINIUM 5471 S HYDE PARK BLVD	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	350 tons Lowest 13%
2912 Condominium Association 2912 2914 N COMMONWEALTH AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	379 tons Lowest 16%
Cedar Street Corporation 70 76 E CEDAR ST	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	485 tons Lowest 26%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data