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.)
215 WEST - LPC 215 W Washington St	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	2,459 tons Highest 17%
Buena Terrace 4242 4246 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	582 tons Lowest 34%
235-Senior Suites of New City 4845 S WESTERN AVE	Senior Living Community	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	571 tons Lowest 33%
6830 N SHERIDAN RD 6830 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	410 tons Lowest 19%
Fine Arts Building 408 410 S Michigan Ave	Office	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	1,034 tons Highest 44%
333 West Wacker 333 W Wacker Dr	Office	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	6,518 tons Highest 5%
70 W Madison 🚩 70 W Madison St	Office	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	10,237 tons Highest 2%
C7131YAT (22222) 7131 7143 S YATES BLVD	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	445 tons Lowest 22%
C5504WAB (22251) 5500 5518 S WABASH AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 49%	462 tons Lowest 23%
Friendly Towers 920 W WILSON AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	789 tons Lowest 46%
NEMA Chicago 1200 S Indiana Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	7,021 tons Highest 4%
Hiltons at McCormick Place 123 E Cermak Rd	Hotel	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	2,286 tons Highest 19%
5430 N. Sheridan Condo 5430 N. Sheridan Rd.	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	377 tons Lowest 15%
Aurelién 833 N Clark St	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	2,429 tons Highest 18%
Jarla, LLC 1825 W WEBSTER AVE	Other - Recreation	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	315 tons Lowest 10%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data