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.)
3510 N. Pine Grove Ave. 3510 N PINE GROVE AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	443 tons Lowest 22%
Palmer Kedzie Condominium Association 3127 3139 W PALMER ST	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	371 tons Lowest 15%
17 N. State LLC 17 N State St	Office	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	2,519 tons Highest 17%
238-Senior Suites of Kelvyn Park 2715 N CICERO AVE	Senior Living Community	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	469 tons Lowest 24%
The Hampdens 2773 N HAMPDEN CT	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	613 tons Lowest 36%
Viridian on Sheridan (vr033) 734 W Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	633 tons Lowest 37%
The Apex Condo 859 W Erie St	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	406 tons Lowest 18%
Englewood 901 W 63rd St	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	381 tons Lowest 16%
Vanguard Lofts Condominium Association 1250 W Van Buren St	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	709 tons Lowest 42%
Morningside Court 1250 W Morse Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	793 tons Lowest 46%
Harold Washington Apartments 4946 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	268 tons Lowest 6%
Jackson Tower Condominium Association Inc 5555 S Everett Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	952 tons Highest 47%
The Park Monroe Condominium Homes Association 65 E Monroe St	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	2,932 tons Highest 14%
Ida Noyes Hall 1212 E 59th St	Other - Entertainment/Public Assembly	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	561 tons Lowest 32%
Laughlin Falconer Elementary School (CPS) 3020 N Lamon Ave	K-12 School	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	1,010 tons Highest 44%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data