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.)
2756-64 N. Pine Grove Ave. 2756 2760 N PINE GROVE AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	813 tons Lowest 47%
Catholic Theological Union - Academic and Conference Center 5416 S Cornell Ave	College/University	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	616 tons Lowest 36%
Chestnut Place Apartments 850 N State St	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	1,563 tons Highest 30%
1130 South Michigan 1130 S Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	4,345 tons Highest 8%
Chestnut Tower (ch084) 121 W Chestnut St	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	1,435 tons Highest 33%
Clinton Street Lofts 226 N Clinton St	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	859 tons Lowest 49%
Monroe Building 104 S Michigan Ave	Office	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	1,482 tons Highest 32%
Burnham Station Condominium Association 61 W 15TH ST	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	757 tons Lowest 44%
Burton-Judson Courts (UChicago) 1005 E 60th St	Residence Hall/Dormitory	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	1,227 tons Highest 38%
Sheridan Point Condominiums 6325 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	946 tons Highest 47%
607 Wrightwood Condominium Association 607 W WRIGHTWOOD AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	436 tons Lowest 21%
The Park Astor Condominium 1515 N ASTOR ST	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	651 tons Lowest 39%
Shoreline Park Condominium Association 4950 N Marine Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	2,355 tons Highest 18%
300 West Adams 300 W Adams	Office	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	1,777 tons Highest 27%
513-519 W. Briar Pl. 513 519 W BRIAR PL	Multifamily Housing	6.1 kg/sqft Lowest 43%	309 tons Lowest 10%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data