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.)
Press Office Building 1427 E 60th St	Office	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 24%	1,038 tons Lowest 3%
Courthouse Place 46 64 W Hubbard St	Office	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 24%	1,187 tons Lowest 14%
300 E Randolph 🚨 300 E Randolph	Office	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 24%	24,655 tons #11 Highest
8411 S HOLLAND RD 8411 S HOLLAND RD	Retail Store	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 24%	1,291 tons Lowest 19%
6000 6038 N CICERO AVE 6000 6038 N CICERO AVE	Multifamily Housing	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 24%	2,499 tons Highest 39%
Lawrence House 1020 W LAWRENCE AVE	Multifamily Housing	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 24%	2,092 tons Highest 49%
Reid Murdoch Center 315 - 331 N LaSalle St	Office	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 24%	3,715 tons Highest 24%
Lake Shore Plaza 445 E Ohio St	Multifamily Housing	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 24%	4,590 tons Highest 18%
Cook County Department of Corrections Campus 🚨 2700 S California Ave	Prison/Incarceration	11.1 kg/sqft Highest 24%	50,507 tons #5 Highest
Target, Chicago Near North (0942) 2656 N Elston Ave	Retail Store	11.0 kg/sqft Highest 24%	2,042 tons Lowest 50%
(IL298) - 1555 Astor Condo 1555 N Astor St	Multifamily Housing	11.0 kg/sqft Highest 24%	3,393 tons Highest 26%
330 W Webster Ave 330 W Webster Ave	K-12 School	11.0 kg/sqft Highest 24%	2,557 tons Highest 37%
111 N Canal 111 N Canal St	Office	11.0 kg/sqft Highest 24%	10,767 tons Highest 5%
Park West Condominium 444 W FULLERTON PKWY	Multifamily Housing	11.0 kg/sqft Highest 24%	2,118 tons Highest 48%
Whitney Young -CPS 211 S Laflin St	K-12 School	11.0 kg/sqft Highest 24%	4,716 tons Highest 17%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data