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.)
Rosenwald Courts 4643 S Wabash	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	1,373 tons Lowest 23%
North & Kostner 4501 W North Ave	Retail Store	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	1,514 tons Lowest 30%
Chestnut Place Apartments 850 N State St	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	1,651 tons Lowest 35%
Adler Planetarium 1300 S Lake Shore Dr	Museum	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	1,117 tons Lowest 8%
Back Of The Yard -CPS 2111 W 47th St	K-12 School	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	1,369 tons Lowest 23%
20 North Michigan Avenue 20 N Michigan Ave	Office	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	1,369 tons Lowest 23%
3240 N ASHLAND AVE 3240 N ASHLAND AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	1,130 tons Lowest 9%
1225 Old Town 1225 N Wells St	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	2,791 tons Highest 33%
224 S Michigan Ave 224 S Michigan Ave	Office	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	2,628 tons Highest 36%
17 N State LLC 17 N State St	Office	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	2,623 tons Highest 36%
Jackson Towers Condo Association 🏆 5555 S Everett Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	1,008 tons #8 Lowest in Chicago*
Michigan Avenue Tower Condominium Association 1250 S Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	2,596 tons Highest 36%
Chicago Acad Elementary -CPS 3400 N Austin Ave	K-12 School	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	1,607 tons Lowest 34%
5230 5244 N SHERIDAN RD 5230 5244 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	1,283 tons Lowest 19%
750 N. Rush 750 N Rush St	Multifamily Housing	6.4 kg/sqft Lowest 27%	2,095 tons Highest 49%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data