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.)
Burton-Judson Courts (UChicago) 1005 E 60th St	Residence Hall/Dormitory	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,188 tons Lowest 14%
USG Building 550 W Adams	Office	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	3,080 tons Highest 29%
540 N LAKE SHORE DR 540 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,427 tons Lowest 25%
South Shore International College Prep -CPS 1955 E 75th St	K-12 School	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,254 tons Lowest 17%
160 E Illinois St 160 E Illinois St	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,532 tons Lowest 31%
Prairie District Lofts Condominium Association 1727 S Indiana Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,029 tons Lowest 3%
Aurelien 833 N Clark St	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	2,284 tons Highest 44%
1448 Lake Shore Dr 🏆 1448 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,036 tons Lowest 3%
Northern Trust Headquarters 50 S LaSalle St	Financial Office	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	3,422 tons Highest 26%
City Hyde Park 5105 S HARPER AVE	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	2,184 tons Highest 46%
East Ohio LLC 420 E Ohio St	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,962 tons Lowest 47%
Mason Elementary -CPS 🏆 4217 W 18th St	K-12 School	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,225 tons Lowest 16%
5000 East End Condominium Association 🏆 5000 S East End Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,375 tons Lowest 23%
Lincoln Perry Apts 3245 S Prairie Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	1,833 tons Lowest 43%
3180 Condominium Association 3180 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.9 kg/sqft Lowest 18%	2,080 tons Highest 49%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data