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.)
Printers Row Condominium Association 711 S DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	1,151 tons Lowest 11%
Kenwood Acad HS -CPS 5015 S Blackstone Ave	K-12 School	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	1,397 tons Lowest 24%
Marist HS 4200 W 115th St	K-12 School	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	1,236 tons Lowest 16%
1660 N LaSalle CA 1660 N LaSalle St	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	2,446 tons Highest 39%
Lindblom College Prep -CPS 6130 S Wolcott Ave	K-12 School	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	1,545 tons Lowest 31%
500 Lake Shore Drive 500 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	3,649 tons Highest 24%
3750 North Lakeshore Drive 3750 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	2,011 tons Lowest 49%
Tower Residences Condominium Association 1235 S Prairie Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	3,062 tons Highest 30%
One East Wacker 1 E Wacker Dr	Office	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	3,523 tons Highest 25%
University Park Condominium Association 🏆 1451 E 55th St	Multifamily Housing	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	2,776 tons Highest 34%
Merchandise Mart 🚩 📷 222 Merchandise Mart Plz	Office	5.1 kg/sqft Lowest 9%	20,933 tons #17 Highest
The State Parkway CA 1445 N State Pkwy	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 8%	1,429 tons Lowest 25%
Appleville Condominium 501 W 24th Pl	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 8%	1,294 tons Lowest 19%
1125 W Loyola Ave 1125 W Loyola Ave	Residence Hall/Dormitory	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 8%	1,289 tons Lowest 19%
828 W GRACE ST 828 W GRACE ST	Multifamily Housing	5.0 kg/sqft Lowest 8%	1,104 tons Lowest 8%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data