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.)
Oglesby Towers 6700 S OGLESBY AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	1,480 tons Lowest 28%
Noble Square Cooperative 1165 N MILWAUKEE AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	1,958 tons Lowest 47%
Lake Point Tower 505 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	10,182 tons Highest 6%
Plaza On Dewitt Condominium Association 260 E Chestnut St	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	2,945 tons Highest 32%
Winston Tower #3 7061 N Kedzie Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	2,740 tons Highest 34%
The Westin Michigan Avenue 909 N Michigan Ave	Hotel	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	3,761 tons Highest 23%
401 N Michigan Ave 401 N Michigan Ave	Office	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	6,087 tons Highest 12%
1336 1352 N SEDGWICK ST 1336 1352 N SEDGWICK ST	Multifamily Housing	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	4,037 tons Highest 21%
Richard J Daley Center 🚩 50 W Washington	Courthouse	6.9 kg/sqft Lowest 36%	10,603 tons Highest 6%
321 N Clark @ Riverfront Plaza 321 N Clark St	Office	6.8 kg/sqft Lowest 34%	6,718 tons Highest 11%
515 North State 515 N STATE ST	Office	6.8 kg/sqft Lowest 34%	5,119 tons Highest 15%
Lofts At Museum Park Condominium Association 1305 S Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.8 kg/sqft Lowest 34%	1,838 tons Lowest 43%
5009 N SHERIDAN RD 5009 N SHERIDAN RD	Multifamily Housing	6.8 kg/sqft Lowest 34%	1,091 tons Lowest 6%
2045 W Jackson Blvd 2045 W Jackson Blvd	Multifamily Housing	6.8 kg/sqft Lowest 34%	1,428 tons Lowest 25%
5100 Marine Drive Condominium Association 5100 N Marine Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.8 kg/sqft Lowest 34%	1,876 tons Lowest 44%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data