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.)
Midpointe Apartments 4050 West 115th Street	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	2,469 tons Highest 39%
600 N Lake Shore Dr 600 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	5,114 tons Highest 15%
2800 Lake Shore Drive Condo Association 2800 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	4,776 tons Highest 17%
The Newport CA 🚩 4800 S Chicago Beach Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	4,821 tons Highest 17%
100 E Huron CA 100 E Huron St	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	3,144 tons Highest 29%
20 N Clark St 20 N Clark St	Office	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	2,688 tons Highest 35%
211 W Wacker Dr 211 W Wacker Dr	Office	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	1,165 tons Lowest 12%
1000 W Adams Condo Association 1000 W Adams St	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	1,147 tons Lowest 11%
230 E ONTARIO ST 🏆 230 E ONTARIO ST	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	1,017 tons #21 Lowest in Chicago*
Hilton Garden Inn Chicago Mccormick Place 123 E Cermak Rd	Hotel	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	2,241 tons Highest 45%
55 W CHESTNUT ST 55 W CHESTNUT ST	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	1,281 tons Lowest 19%
3963 W BELMONT AVE 3963 W BELMONT AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	1,551 tons Lowest 32%
555 Cornelia Condominium Association 555 W Cornelia Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	1,376 tons Lowest 23%
850 W EASTWOOD AVE 850 W EASTWOOD AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	1,505 tons Lowest 30%
Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers 301 E N Water St	Hotel	6.2 kg/sqft Lowest 23%	7,133 tons Highest 10%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data