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.)
Goode HS -CPS 7651 S Homan Ave	K-12 School	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,545 tons Lowest 32%
Mercy Circle 3659 W 99TH ST	Residential Care Facility	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,091 tons Lowest 6%
Sheridan Plaza Apartments 4601 4613 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,143 tons Lowest 10%
Arturo Velasquez Institute 2800 S Western Ave	College/University	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,300 tons Lowest 19%
Circa 922 922 W Washington Blvd	Multifamily Housing	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,161 tons Lowest 12%
Lloyd Elementary -CPS 2103 N Lamon Ave	K-12 School	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,114 tons Lowest 8%
Ariel Elemenentary-CPS 1119 E 46th St	K-12 School	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,087 tons Lowest 6%
Hampton Inn and Suites Chicago 33 W Illinois St	Hotel	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,181 tons Lowest 14%
The Guild Condo 50 E 16th St	Multifamily Housing	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,678 tons Lowest 37%
Hilliard Homes Phase I Limited Partnership 2031 S Clark St	Multifamily Housing	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,281 tons Lowest 19%
55 W Wacker Dr 55 W Wacker Dr	Office	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	2,063 tons Lowest 50%
4827 N SHERIDAN RD 4827 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,207 tons Lowest 15%
Erie on the Park Condominium Association 510 W Erie St	Multifamily Housing	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	1,453 tons Lowest 27%
Lancaster Condo Association 201 N Westshore Dr	Multifamily Housing	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	2,378 tons Highest 41%
1010 Lake Shore Association 1010 N Lake Shore Drive	Multifamily Housing	7.4 kg/sqft Lowest 45%	2,967 tons Highest 31%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data