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.)
Ace Hotel Chicago 311 N MORGAN ST	Hotel	12.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,541 tons Lowest 31%
BAI Century, LLC 2828 N Clark St	Enclosed Mall	12.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	2,089 tons Highest 49%
James R Thompson Center 🚩 100 W Randolph St	Office	12.0 kg/sqft Highest 20%	14,265 tons #44 Highest
NBC Tower 🚩 455 N Cityfront Plaza Dr	Office	11.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	11,205 tons Highest 5%
830 N Michigan Ave 830 N Michigan Ave	Enclosed Mall	11.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,505 tons Lowest 30%
West Side Realty Corporation 1645 W Jackson Blvd	Medical Office	11.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,519 tons Lowest 31%
909 W WASHINGTON BLVD 909 W WASHINGTON BLVD	Multifamily Housing	11.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	1,088 tons Lowest 6%
Simeon Career Academy HS -CPS 8235 S Vincennes Ave	K-12 School	11.9 kg/sqft Highest 20%	2,511 tons Highest 38%
Point at Clark 3131 N Clark St	Strip Mall	11.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	1,126 tons Lowest 9%
3601 3613 S WELLS ST 3601 3613 S WELLS ST	Multifamily Housing	11.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	1,033 tons Lowest 3%
Fannie Emanuel 3916 W Washington	Multifamily Housing	11.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	1,118 tons Lowest 9%
Hope College Prepa HS -CPS 5515 South Lowe Ave	K-12 School	11.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	1,889 tons Lowest 44%
3101-3121 N Sheridan Rd 3101-3121 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	11.8 kg/sqft Highest 21%	2,431 tons Highest 40%
Charles M. Harper Cetner (Booth School) 🏆 5807 S Woodlawn Ave	College/University	11.7 kg/sqft Highest 21%	4,903 tons Highest 16%
Centennial Hall (DePaul) 2345 N Sheffield Ave	College/University	11.7 kg/sqft Highest 21%	1,034 tons Lowest 3%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data