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.)
James Hedges Elementary School (CPS) 4735 S Winchester Ave	K-12 School	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	619 tons Lowest 36%
Frank W Reilly Elementary School (CPS) 3650 W School St	K-12 School	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	695 tons Lowest 41%
Agustin Lara Elementary Academy (CPS) 4619 S Wolcott Ave	K-12 School	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	414 tons Lowest 19%
James Wadsworth Elementary School (CPS) 6650 S Ellis Ave	K-12 School	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	396 tons Lowest 18%
Henry R Clissold Elementary School (CPS) 2330 W 110th Pl	K-12 School	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	383 tons Lowest 16%
2020 Lincoln Park West Condominium Association 2020 N Lincoln Park West	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	2,645 tons Highest 16%
Michigan Avenue Tower Condominium Association 1250 S Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	2,452 tons Highest 18%
Ritchie Court Condominium Association 1313 N Ritchie Ct	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	1,196 tons Highest 39%
Renaissance Place at Hyde Park Condominium Association South 1000 E 53RD ST	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	846 tons Lowest 49%
Lake Point Tower Condominium Association 505 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	9,454 tons Highest 3%
Sheridan Surf LLC 2850 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	1,160 tons Highest 39%
Wentworth Condo 2734 S WENTWORTH AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	391 tons Lowest 17%
2339 N. Geneva 2335 2345 N GENEVA TER	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	398 tons Lowest 18%
Elm II LLC 18 E ELM ST	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	475 tons Lowest 25%
Diversey Square Phase 1 - TOTAL 3300 3306 W DIVERSEY AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	1,099 tons Highest 42%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data