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.)
The Renaissance 901 905 W ARGYLE ST	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	401 tons Lowest 18%
The Burnham at Woodlawn Park 6134 S. Cottage Grove Avenue	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	454 tons Lowest 22%
Twelve01West 176 N Racine Avenue	Office	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,045 tons Highest 43%
Reside on Jackson 1241 1245 W JACKSON BLVD	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	716 tons Lowest 42%
Sunnycourt Condominiums 906 934 W Sunnyside	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	471 tons Lowest 24%
Forty East Delaware Place Condominium Association 40 E Delaware Pl	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	843 tons Lowest 49%
The Gwen Hotel 521 N Rush St	Hotel	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	2,236 tons Highest 20%
2007 N Sedgwick Condominium 2007 N Sedgwick	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	309 tons Lowest 10%
Association House of Chicago 1116 N Kedzie Ave	Office	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	951 tons Highest 47%
Reside on Wellington 510-24 W Wellington	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	443 tons Lowest 22%
Henry Crown Field House 5550 S University Ave	Fitness Center/Health Club/Gym	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	907 tons Highest 49%
Lyman A Budlong Elementary School (CPS) 2701 W Foster Ave	K-12 School	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	636 tons Lowest 38%
Isabelle C O'Keeffe Elementary School (CPS) 6940 S Merrill Ave	K-12 School	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	589 tons Lowest 34%
William P Nixon Elementary School (CPS) 2121 N Keeler Ave	K-12 School	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	806 tons Lowest 47%
Daniel Boone Elementary School (CPS) 6710 N Washtenaw Ave	K-12 School	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	575 tons Lowest 33%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data