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.

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/sqft)	Total Greenhouse Emissions (metric tons CO₂)
The Parker Fulton Market 730 W COUCH PL	Multifamily Housing	7.0 Lowest 38%	1,770 Lowest 41%
321 339 S DESPLAINES ST 321 339 S DESPLAINES ST	Multifamily Housing	7.0 Lowest 38%	1,254 Lowest 17%
407 415 S DEARBORN ST 407 415 S DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	7.0 Lowest 38%	1,401 Lowest 24%
MacLean Center 112 S Michigan Ave	College/University	7.0 Lowest 38%	1,653 Lowest 36%
The Boyce Building 500 - 510 N Dearborn St	Office	7.0 Lowest 38%	1,046 Lowest 4%
Old Republic Building 301 - 317 N Michigan Ave	Office	7.0 Lowest 38%	1,545 Lowest 32%
Wilson Yard 1026 - 1032 W Montrose Ave	Mixed Use Property	7.0 Lowest 38%	2,897 Highest 32%
Carver Millitary Academy -CPS 13100 S Carver Dr	K-12 School	7.0 Lowest 38%	2,086 Highest 49%
Burnham Park Plaza Condo 40 E 9th St	Multifamily Housing	7.0 Lowest 38%	2,916 Highest 32%
222 E PEARSON ST 222 E PEARSON ST	Multifamily Housing	7.0 Lowest 38%	1,554 Lowest 32%
Prairie District Homes Tower Residences Condominiu 1717 S Prairie Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.0 Lowest 38%	2,043 Lowest 50%
3130 N Lake Shore Dr 3130 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	7.0 Lowest 38%	1,656 Lowest 36%
Lakeview East Cooperative 707 W Waveland Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.0 Lowest 38%	1,649 Lowest 35%
5757 N Sheridan CA 🏆 5757 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	7.0 Lowest 38%	1,384 Lowest 24%
7447 South Shore, LLC - South Shore Beach Apartments 7447 S South Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	7.0 Lowest 38%	2,361 Highest 42%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data