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.)
Club Quarters 75 E Wacker Dr	Hotel	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	1,122 tons Lowest 9%
Eric Solorio HS -CPS 5410 S St Louis Ave	K-12 School	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	1,337 tons Lowest 21%
Apostolic Church of God 6340 S Dorchester Ave	Worship Facility	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	1,351 tons Lowest 22%
20 E CEDAR ST 20 E CEDAR ST	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	1,071 tons Lowest 5%
3001 S MICHIGAN AVE 3001 S MICHIGAN AVE	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	1,204 tons Lowest 15%
Midwest Apartments 6 N Hamlin Blvd	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	1,464 tons Lowest 28%
Twin Towers Apartments 1649 E 50th Pl	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	1,372 tons Lowest 23%
Wicker Park Apts 1414 N Damen Ave	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	1,196 tons Lowest 15%
O'Hare Plaza I 8725- 8745 W Higgins Rd	Office	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	3,413 tons Highest 26%
1K Fulton 1000 W Fulton St	Office	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	3,561 tons Highest 25%
Crane Achievement Academy -CPS 2245 W Jackson Blvd	K-12 School	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	2,633 tons Highest 36%
Hubbard Place Apartments 360 W Hubbard St	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	3,159 tons Highest 29%
400 North LaSalle Condominium Association 400 N LaSalle St	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	3,455 tons Highest 25%
Shoreline Park Condominium Association 4950 N Marine Dr	Multifamily Housing	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	2,436 tons Highest 40%
Schurz HS -CPS 3601 N Milwaukee Ave	K-12 School	6.3 kg/sqft Lowest 25%	2,866 tons Highest 32%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data