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.)
Regatta Condominium Association 420 E Waterside Dr	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Lowest 38%	3,174 tons Highest 28%
Asbury Plaza 750 N Dearborn St	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Lowest 38%	2,512 tons Highest 38%
00806-The Hallmark 2960 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Lowest 38%	3,075 tons Highest 29%
The National 125 S Clark St	Office	7.0 kg/sqft Lowest 38%	4,065 tons Highest 21%
Skybridge CA 737 W Washington Blvd	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Lowest 38%	5,731 tons Highest 13%
Long Grove House 2001 S Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.0 kg/sqft Lowest 38%	3,427 tons Highest 26%
1380 E HYDE PARK BLVD 1380 E HYDE PARK BLVD	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	1,097 tons Lowest 7%
The Morgan at Loyola Station 1209 W Arthur Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	1,099 tons Lowest 7%
Payton College Prep HS -CPS 1010 N Wells St	K-12 School	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	1,498 tons Lowest 29%
The Hudson 750 N HUDSON AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	2,029 tons Lowest 50%
Vivian Carter Apts 6401 S Yale Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	1,039 tons Lowest 3%
(IL510) - Emerald Condo 123 - 125 S Green St	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	1,742 tons Lowest 40%
Lewis & O'Malley 25 E Jackson Blvd	College/University	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	2,635 tons Highest 36%
AMLI River North 71 W Hubbard St	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	3,121 tons Highest 29%
Medical District Apartments 901 903 S Ashland Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	2,358 tons Highest 42%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data