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.

Chicago Buildings by Greenhouse Gas Intensity

Note: Data only includes large Chicago buildings from 2020

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 2020, 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.)
Salvation Army Freedom Center 825 N CHRISTIANA AVE	Residence Hall/Dormitory	10.4 kg/sqft Highest 27%	1,916 tons Lowest 45%
Atlas 2 E 8th St 2 E 8th St	Multifamily Housing	10.4 kg/sqft Highest 27%	2,757 tons Highest 34%
IL0054ZZ - Clark Fedral Bldg 536 S Clark St	Office	10.4 kg/sqft Highest 27%	6,624 tons Highest 11%
Regenstein Library 🏆 1100 E 57th St	Library	10.3 kg/sqft Highest 27%	6,260 tons Highest 12%
Manhattan Building 🏆 423 439 S DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	10.3 kg/sqft Highest 27%	1,252 tons Lowest 17%
4700 S COTTAGE GROVE AVE 4700 S COTTAGE GROVE AVE	Multifamily Housing	10.3 kg/sqft Highest 27%	2,075 tons Highest 49%
Home Depot, #1912 North Ave 1232 W North Ave	Retail Store	10.3 kg/sqft Highest 27%	1,724 tons Lowest 39%
NortHigh School ide College Prep HS -CPS 5501 N Kedzie Ave	K-12 School	10.3 kg/sqft Highest 27%	2,292 tons Highest 43%
The Imperial of Lincoln Park 1366 W Fullerton Ave	Senior Living Community	10.3 kg/sqft Highest 27%	1,937 tons Lowest 46%
Chicago State University Campus 🚩 9501 S Martin Luther King Dr	College/University	10.3 kg/sqft Highest 27%	12,026 tons Highest 4%
Four40 🚩 440 S LaSalle St	Office	10.2 kg/sqft Highest 28%	11,768 tons Highest 5%
River North Point 🚩 350 N Orleans St	Office	10.2 kg/sqft Highest 28%	19,305 tons #25 Highest
101 North Wacker 101 N Wacker Dr	Office	10.2 kg/sqft Highest 28%	6,738 tons Highest 10%
North Park University 5148 N KEDZIE AVE	College/University	10.2 kg/sqft Highest 28%	1,155 tons Lowest 11%
1850-1856 N Clark St 1850-1856 N Clark St	Multifamily Housing	10.2 kg/sqft Highest 28%	1,958 tons Lowest 47%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data