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.)
161 North Clark 🚩 161 N Clark	Office	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 35%	10,884 tons Highest 5%
Crerar Library 🏆 (UChicago) 5730 S Ellis Ave	Library	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 35%	1,527 tons Lowest 31%
Target, Chicago Brickyard (1924) 6525 W Diversey Ave	Retail Store	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 35%	1,278 tons Lowest 18%
310 S PEORIA ST 310 S PEORIA ST	Multifamily Housing	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 35%	1,715 tons Lowest 39%
Raby HS -CPS 3545 W Fulton St	K-12 School	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 35%	1,416 tons Lowest 25%
180 North Jefferson Apartments 180 N Jefferson St	Multifamily Housing	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 35%	2,084 tons Highest 49%
111 W WACKER DR 111 W WACKER DR	Multifamily Housing	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 35%	4,175 tons Highest 20%
International Tower 8550 W Bryn Mawr Ave	Office	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 35%	2,822 tons Highest 33%
Kinzie Park Tower Condominium Association 501 N Clinton St	Multifamily Housing	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 35%	2,660 tons Highest 35%
Second Prairie Shores, LLC 2951 S King Dr	Multifamily Housing	9.1 kg/sqft Highest 35%	2,632 tons Highest 36%
Target, Chicago Mid North (1437) 2939 W Addison St	Retail Store	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 36%	1,716 tons Lowest 39%
Southland Preservation 6253 S MICHIGAN AVE	Multifamily Housing	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 36%	1,711 tons Lowest 38%
150 N Wacker Dr 150 N Wacker Dr	Office	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 36%	2,379 tons Highest 41%
Lake Terrace Condominiums 7337 S SOUTH SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 36%	2,455 tons Highest 39%
860 N Lake Shore Drive Trust 860 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	9.0 kg/sqft Highest 36%	3,087 tons Highest 29%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data