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.)
Edith Spurlock Sampson Apts 2720 N Sheffield Ave	Multifamily Housing	11.4 kg/sqft Highest 22%	1,784 tons Lowest 42%
Bryn Mawr 5550 N Kenmore Ave	Multifamily Housing	11.4 kg/sqft Highest 22%	1,775 tons Lowest 41%
500 N Michigan 500 N Michigan Ave	Office	11.3 kg/sqft Highest 22%	4,402 tons Highest 19%
Madison 123 Assoc LLC 🏆 119 - 123 Madison St	Office	11.3 kg/sqft Highest 22%	1,020 tons #24 Lowest
Aviation Administration Building 10510 W Zemke Rd	Office	11.3 kg/sqft Highest 22%	1,875 tons Lowest 44%
Gateway Chandler 2555 N Clark St	Multifamily Housing	11.3 kg/sqft Highest 22%	1,704 tons Lowest 38%
Dana Hotel & Spa 660 N State St	Hotel	11.2 kg/sqft Highest 23%	1,330 tons Lowest 21%
Courtyard Marriot 30 E Hubbard St	Hotel	11.2 kg/sqft Highest 23%	2,268 tons Highest 44%
200 West Partners Limited Partnership 330 S Wells St	Multifamily Housing	11.2 kg/sqft Highest 23%	1,092 tons Lowest 7%
Johnson Center for Science and Community Life 5141 N Christiana Ave	College/University	11.2 kg/sqft Highest 23%	1,132 tons Lowest 9%
645 N Michigan Ave 645 N Michigan Ave	Office	11.2 kg/sqft Highest 23%	2,409 tons Highest 40%
Prosser Career Acad HS -CPS 2148 N Long Ave	K-12 School	11.2 kg/sqft Highest 23%	2,346 tons Highest 42%
The Hoxton 200 N Green St	Hotel	11.2 kg/sqft Highest 23%	1,708 tons Lowest 38%
Park Newberry Condominiums 55 W Delaware Pl	Multifamily Housing	11.2 kg/sqft Highest 23%	2,917 tons Highest 32%
939 North Avenue Collection,LLC 913 949 W North Ave	Mixed Use Property	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 24%	2,440 tons Highest 40%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data