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.)
4747 S DR MARTIN LUTHER KING JR DR 4747 S DR MARTIN LUTHER KING JR DR	Multifamily Housing	10.2 kg/sqft Highest 28%	2,505 tons Highest 38%
Cook County Building 118 N Clark St	Office	10.2 kg/sqft Highest 28%	6,532 tons Highest 11%
River East Center Campus 🚩 322 E Illinois St	Mixed Use Property	10.2 kg/sqft Highest 28%	15,479 tons #38 Highest
The Maxwell 1100 S Canal St	Strip Mall	10.1 kg/sqft Highest 28%	2,437 tons Highest 40%
Delaware Place Private Residences 875 N DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	10.1 kg/sqft Highest 28%	1,505 tons Lowest 30%
Piper's Alley 230 W North Ave	Mixed Use Property	10.1 kg/sqft Highest 28%	2,223 tons Highest 46%
The Edge Lofts & Tower Condominium Association 210 S Des Plaines St	Multifamily Housing	10.1 kg/sqft Highest 28%	2,392 tons Highest 41%
Quadrangle House 6700 S Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	10.1 kg/sqft Highest 28%	2,237 tons Highest 45%
Dearborn Homes 🚩 2960 S Federal St	Multifamily Housing	10.1 kg/sqft Highest 28%	7,159 tons Highest 9%
737 North Michigan Avenue Investors LLC 🚩 737 N Michigan Ave	Mixed Use Property	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 29%	10,567 tons Highest 6%
CW GLL 444 N Michigan 🏆 444 N Michigan Ave	Office	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 29%	5,190 tons Highest 14%
Target, Chicago West Loop (2781) 1101 W Jackson Blvd	Retail Store	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 29%	1,685 tons Lowest 37%
O.P.LLC/Orleans Plaza 351 W Hubbard St	Office	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 29%	1,904 tons Lowest 45%
Corboy Law Center 25 E Pearson St	College/University	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 29%	3,069 tons Highest 30%
Bouchet Elementary Acad -CPS 🏆 7355 S Jeffrey Blvd	K-12 School	10.0 kg/sqft Highest 29%	1,011 tons #11 Lowest

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data