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.)
Tarkington School Of Excellence Es -CPS 3330 W 71st St	K-12 School	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	1,031 tons Lowest 3%
1501 N STATE PKWY 1501 N STATE PKWY	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	1,386 tons Lowest 24%
Kingsbury Center 350 W Hubbard St	Office	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	1,173 tons Lowest 13%
29 N Wacker Dr 29 N Wacker Dr	Office	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	1,046 tons Lowest 4%
North Park Village Apartments - Building G 5801 N Pulaski Rd - Bldg G	Residential Care Facility	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	1,460 tons Lowest 27%
museum of contemporary art 220 E Chicago Ave	Museum	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	2,265 tons Highest 44%
The Van der Rohe 2933 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	1,478 tons Lowest 28%
328 S Jefferson 328 S Jefferson	Other	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	2,132 tons Highest 47%
SoNo Condominium Association 860 W Blackhawk St	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	2,281 tons Highest 44%
El Lago Condominium Association 6157 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	2,256 tons Highest 45%
5101 5115 N SHERIDAN RD 🏆 5101 5115 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	1,586 tons Lowest 33%
2650 Lakeview Condominium Association 2650 N Lakeview Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	3,600 tons Highest 25%
Prudential Plaza 🚩 130 E Randolph St	Office	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	20,898 tons #18 Highest
River Plaza 405 N Wabash Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	5,563 tons Highest 13%
3950 N Lake Shore Drive CA 3950 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	7.6 kg/sqft Lowest 48%	5,649 tons Highest 13%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data