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.)
1616 E 56Th St 1616 E 56Th St	Multifamily Housing	4.9 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	1,635 tons Lowest 35%
PAC Lofts 🏆 1735 N Paulina	Multifamily Housing	4.9 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	1,016 tons #19 Lowest in Chicago*
Morgan Park HS -CPS 1744 W Pryor Ave	K-12 School	4.9 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	1,328 tons Lowest 21%
Dunbar Vocational Acad HS -CPS 3000 S King Dr	K-12 School	4.9 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	1,569 tons Lowest 33%
DuSable Campus -CPS 4934 S Wabash Ave	K-12 School	4.9 kg/sqft Lowest 7%	2,028 tons Lowest 49%
The Gage Commericial Condominium Building 🏆 18 28 S Michigan Ave	College/University	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 6%	1,007 tons #5 Lowest in Chicago*
University Village Lofts 1524 S Sangamon St	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 6%	1,219 tons Lowest 16%
3260 N LAKE SHORE DR 3260 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 6%	1,232 tons Lowest 16%
Fenger Achievement Academy -CPS 11220 S Wallace St	K-12 School	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 6%	1,637 tons Lowest 35%
530 North Lake Shore Drive 530 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 6%	2,457 tons Highest 39%
Glen Lake 1 Condo Assoc. 6400 W Berteau	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 6%	2,084 tons Highest 49%
Truman College 1145 W Wilson Ave	College/University	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 6%	4,592 tons Highest 18%
K2 Apartments 365 N Halsted St	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 6%	3,410 tons Highest 26%
Hawthorne House Apartments 3450 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	4.8 kg/sqft Lowest 6%	2,566 tons Highest 37%
111 S PEORIA ST 111 S PEORIA ST	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	1,056 tons Lowest 4%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data