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.)
200 N. Dearborn CA 200 N Dearborn St	Multifamily Housing	7.1 kg/sqft Lowest 40%	2,538 tons Highest 38%
State & Chestnut 845 N State St	Multifamily Housing	7.1 kg/sqft Lowest 40%	3,175 tons Highest 28%
200 W Jackson Boulevard Bldg 200 W Jackson Blvd	Office	7.1 kg/sqft Lowest 40%	3,870 tons Highest 22%
111 West Jackson 111 W Jackson Blvd	Office	7.1 kg/sqft Lowest 40%	4,738 tons Highest 17%
Newberry Plaza Condominium Association 1030 N State St	Multifamily Housing	7.1 kg/sqft Lowest 40%	5,374 tons Highest 14%
5455 Edgewater Plaza Condominium Association 5455 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	7.1 kg/sqft Lowest 40%	3,817 tons Highest 23%
Hartford Plaza 150 S Wacker Dr	Office	7.1 kg/sqft Lowest 40%	9,155 tons Highest 7%
1350-60 N LSD 1350 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	7.1 kg/sqft Lowest 40%	5,177 tons Highest 15%
333 W Wacker 333 W Wacker Dr	Office	7.0 kg/sqft Lowest 38%	7,137 tons Highest 10%
Menards 🏆 2601 N Clybourn St	Retail Store	7.0 kg/sqft Lowest 38%	1,012 tons #12 Lowest in Chicago*
Harold Washington College 30 E Lake St	College/University	7.0 kg/sqft Lowest 38%	2,430 tons Highest 40%
Wilson 669 North Michigan Avenue LLC 669 N Michigan Ave	Retail Store	7.0 kg/sqft Lowest 38%	1,039 tons Lowest 3%
The Park Monroe Condominium Homes Association 65 E Monroe St	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Lowest 38%	3,362 tons Highest 27%
500 S DEARBORN ST 500 S DEARBORN ST	Hotel	7.0 kg/sqft Lowest 38%	1,047 tons Lowest 4%
JeffJack Apartments 601 W Jackson	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Lowest 38%	1,365 tons Lowest 23%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data