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 Oaks 820 S PARK TER	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	976 tons Highest 46%
360 W Hubbard Joint Venture LLC 360 W Hubbard St	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	3,117 tons Highest 13%
750 N. Rush 750 N Rush St	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,999 tons Highest 23%
1516 N State Pkwy Condo 1516 N STATE PKWY	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	654 tons Lowest 39%
Realtor Building 430 N Michigan Ave	Office	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,734 tons Highest 27%
O'Hare Plaza II 8755 W HIGGINS RD	Office	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,600 tons Highest 29%
Contemporaine Condominium Association 201 W Grand Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	595 tons Lowest 34%
Webster Square Apartments 558 W WEBSTER AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	484 tons Lowest 26%
Astor Banks Condominium Association 1321 1327 N ASTOR ST	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	340 tons Lowest 12%
One East Schiller Condominium Association 1 E SCHILLER ST	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	998 tons Highest 45%
1339 North Dearborn Condominium Association 1339 N DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	639 tons Lowest 38%
Atrium Condominium Association 4101 4115 S MICHIGAN AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	309 tons Lowest 10%
Princeton House Condominium 5918 N KENMORE AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	380 tons Lowest 16%
Kenwin Venture LLLP 5220 5224 N KENMORE AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	317 tons Lowest 11%
515-523 W. Barry Ave. 515 523 W BARRY AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	361 tons Lowest 14%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data