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.)
300 North Elizabeth 300 N Elizabeth St	Office	19.6 kg/sqft Highest 9%	2,504 tons Highest 38%
Omni Hotel 676 N Michigan Ave	Hotel	19.5 kg/sqft Highest 9%	8,600 tons Highest 8%
Symphony of Bronzeville 3400 3428 S INDIANA AVE	Senior Living Community	19.4 kg/sqft Highest 9%	1,416 tons Lowest 25%
Kindred Hospital Chicago North 2544 W Montrose Ave	Other - Specialty Hospital	19.1 kg/sqft Highest 10%	2,837 tons Highest 33%
Incubator Building 55 W 34th Street	College/University	19.0 kg/sqft Highest 10%	1,373 tons Lowest 23%
Garfield Park Behavioral Hospital 🏆 520 N Ridgeway Ave	Other - Specialty Hospital	19.0 kg/sqft Highest 10%	1,016 tons #17 Lowest in Chicago*
Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute 2430 N Halsted St	Laboratory	18.9 kg/sqft Highest 10%	2,315 tons Highest 43%
#1107 Chicago South Loop 1430 S Ashland Ave	Supermarket/Grocery Store	18.9 kg/sqft Highest 10%	2,960 tons Highest 31%
2535 S Dr Martin Luther King Jr Dr 2535 S Dr Martin Luther King Jr Dr	Medical Office	18.8 kg/sqft Highest 10%	1,038 tons Lowest 3%
Kent Chemical Laboratory 🏆 1020 - 1024 E 58th St	Laboratory	18.8 kg/sqft Highest 10%	1,123 tons Lowest 9%
Holy Cross Hospial 🚩 2701 W 68th St	Hospital (General Medical & Surgical)	18.8 kg/sqft Highest 10%	7,708 tons Highest 9%
Presence St Joseph Hospital - Chicago 🚩 2900 N Lake Shore Dr	Hospital (General Medical & Surgical)	18.5 kg/sqft Highest 10%	12,603 tons Highest 4%
Ratner Athletics Center (UChicago) 5530 S Ellis Ave	Fitness Center/Health Club/Gym	18.4 kg/sqft Highest 10%	3,109 tons Highest 29%
Chicago-Central 4058 W Melrose St	Other - Specialty Hospital	18.4 kg/sqft Highest 10%	2,191 tons Highest 46%
Mansueto Library 🏆 1100 E 57th St	Library	18.1 kg/sqft Highest 10%	1,161 tons Lowest 12%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data