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.)
Brooks College Prep. Acad - CPS 250 E 111th St	K-12 School	6.6 kg/sqft Lowest 31%	1,739 tons Lowest 40%
10 E. Delaware Condominium Association 10 E Delaware Pl	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Lowest 31%	2,444 tons Highest 40%
(IL247) - River Place on the Park Condo 700 N Larrabee St	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Lowest 31%	2,022 tons Lowest 49%
73 E LAKE ST 73 E LAKE ST	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Lowest 31%	1,956 tons Lowest 47%
Campus Residential North Commons (UChicago) 5500 S UNIVERSITY AVE	Residence Hall/Dormitory	6.6 kg/sqft Lowest 31%	2,776 tons Highest 34%
2631 S Indiana Ave 2631 S Indiana Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Lowest 31%	1,638 tons Lowest 35%
Wrigley Building 410 N MICHIGAN AVE	Office	6.6 kg/sqft Lowest 31%	4,087 tons Highest 20%
Lake Parc Place 3939 - 3983 S Lake Park Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Lowest 31%	1,933 tons Lowest 46%
474 North Lake Shore Drive 474 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Lowest 31%	3,694 tons Highest 24%
Hilton Chicago 🚩 720 S Michigan Ave	Hotel	6.6 kg/sqft Lowest 31%	13,461 tons #48 Highest
Regents Park 🚩 5020 - 5050 S Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.6 kg/sqft Lowest 31%	9,661 tons Highest 7%
The Palmer House Hotel 🚩 17 E Monroe St	Hotel	6.6 kg/sqft Lowest 31%	11,168 tons Highest 5%
One South Wacker 1 S Wacker	Office	6.5 kg/sqft Lowest 29%	8,730 tons Highest 8%
550 W Washington 550 W Washington	Office	6.5 kg/sqft Lowest 29%	2,559 tons Highest 37%
Bennett Brothers Building (Hartman Building) 30 32 E ADAMS ST	Office	6.5 kg/sqft Lowest 29%	1,131 tons Lowest 9%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data