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.)
Sofitel Chicago Water Tower 20 E Chestnut St	Hotel	12.4 kg/sqft Highest 19%	4,690 tons Highest 17%
IIT Tower 🏆 📷 (Illinois Tech) 10 W 35th Street	College/University	12.3 kg/sqft Highest 19%	4,843 tons Highest 16%
Lurie Children's Faculty Office Building 🏆 155 E Superior St	Office	12.3 kg/sqft Highest 19%	1,016 tons #17 Lowest
1111 N Clark St 1111 N Clark St	Automobile Dealership	12.3 kg/sqft Highest 19%	1,110 tons Lowest 8%
Harold Washington Library 400 S State St	Library	12.2 kg/sqft Highest 19%	9,208 tons Highest 7%
The Womens Treatment Center 140 N Ashland Ave	Residential Care Facility	12.2 kg/sqft Highest 19%	1,273 tons Lowest 18%
Little Village HS Campus -CPS 3120 S Kostner Ave	K-12 School	12.2 kg/sqft Highest 19%	3,534 tons Highest 25%
1165 N Clark St 1165 N Clark St	Office	12.1 kg/sqft Highest 19%	1,239 tons Lowest 16%
Damen/Hastings 1340 S Damen Ave	Office	12.1 kg/sqft Highest 19%	1,934 tons Lowest 46%
Walmart Supercenter #5617 4626 W Diversey Ave	Wholesale Club/Supercenter	12.1 kg/sqft Highest 19%	1,413 tons Lowest 25%
Villa at Windsor Park 2649 E 75th St	Senior Living Community	12.1 kg/sqft Highest 19%	1,181 tons Lowest 14%
180 N Wabash Ave 180 N Wabash Ave	Office	12.1 kg/sqft Highest 19%	1,955 tons Lowest 47%
Palmolive Building Condominium Association 913 - 921 N Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	12.1 kg/sqft Highest 19%	4,802 tons Highest 17%
820 W Jackson Blvd 820 W Jackson Blvd	Office	12.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	2,095 tons Highest 48%
350 N LaSalle St 350 N LaSalle St	Office	12.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,454 tons Lowest 27%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data