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.)
International House (UChicago) 1414 E 59th St	Residence Hall/Dormitory	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	1,495 tons Highest 31%
Kilpatrick Renaissance 4655 W Berteau Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	500 tons Lowest 27%
6200-42 N Hoyne 6200-42 N Hoyne Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	1,038 tons Highest 44%
Washington D Smyser Elementary School (CPS) 4310 N Melvina Ave	K-12 School	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	493 tons Lowest 26%
Charles R Darwin Elementary School (CPS) 3116 W Belden Ave	K-12 School	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	761 tons Lowest 45%
James Monroe Elementary School (CPS) 3651 W Schubert Ave	K-12 School	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	778 tons Lowest 46%
Hawthorne Elementary Scholastic Academy (CPS) 3319 N Clifton Ave	K-12 School	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	449 tons Lowest 22%
Clybourn 2601 N Clybourn St	Retail Store	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	905 tons Highest 49%
Yards Forman Mills 4520 S Damen Ave	Retail Store	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	335 tons Lowest 12%
Ten East Delaware 10 E Delaware Pl	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	2,324 tons Highest 19%
474 North Lake Shore Drive 474 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	3,489 tons Highest 11%
757 Orleans at Chicago 757 N Orleans St	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	2,005 tons Highest 23%
222 E Pearson Condominium Association 222 E PEARSON ST	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	1,399 tons Highest 34%
1500 Lakeshore Drive Building Corp. 1500 N Lakeshore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	1,807 tons Highest 26%
CH10 - Chicago South 11840 S Marshfield Ave	Office	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 47%	812 tons Lowest 47%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data