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.)
John J Audubon Elementary School (CPS) 3500 N Hoyne Ave	K-12 School	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	452 tons Lowest 22%
Reside 707 707 W Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	632 tons Lowest 37%
Chandler 450 E Waterside Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	2,965 tons Highest 14%
Harbor View Condo Assoc 1901 S Calumet Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	2,609 tons Highest 16%
Newberry Plaza Condominium Association 1030 N State St	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	4,669 tons Highest 8%
2930 Sheridan Tower Condominium Association 2930 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,507 tons Highest 31%
Granville Tower 6166 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,205 tons Highest 39%
Lakeside on the Park Condominium Association 1250 S INDIANA AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,278 tons Highest 37%
Lowell House Condominium Association 88 W Schiller St	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,745 tons Highest 27%
Drake Tower Apartments Inc. 179 E LAKESHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,523 tons Highest 31%
Del Prado 5301 5317 S HYDE PARK BLVD	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,469 tons Highest 32%
Loft Works on Michigan 1919 S MICHIGAN AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	256 tons Lowest 6%
Chicago and Midwest Regional Joint Board 333 S Ashland Ave	Office	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	424 tons Lowest 20%
Tree Studios 601 - 623 N State St	Retail Store	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	346 tons Lowest 13%
Madison Park Apartments 1380 E HYDE PARK BLVD	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	995 tons Highest 45%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data