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.)
Metro 1200 W MONROE	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	1,315 tons Lowest 20%
215 West Apartments 215 W Washington St	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	3,171 tons Highest 28%
3240 N LAKE SHORE DR 3240 N LAKE SHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	1,186 tons Lowest 14%
Marshall Metro HS -CPS 3250 W Adams St	K-12 School	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	1,733 tons Lowest 39%
3520 Lake Shore Drive CA 3520 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	1,328 tons Lowest 21%
The Belmont by Reside 3170 N Sheridan Rd	Multifamily Housing	4.7 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	2,236 tons Highest 45%
Chase Tower Chicago 🚩 10 S Dearborn St	Financial Office	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	11,190 tons Highest 5%
SIR Chicago 400 S Jefferson St	Office	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	1,268 tons Lowest 18%
826 W Montrose Ave 826 W Montrose Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	2,174 tons Highest 46%
Piccolo Specialty -CPS 🏆 1040 N Keeler Ave	K-12 School	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	1,016 tons #20 Lowest
Gage Park HS -CPS 🏆 5600 S Rockwell St	K-12 School	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	1,019 tons #22 Lowest
Roosevelt Collection 150 W Roosevelt Rd	Mixed Use Property	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	4,988 tons Highest 16%
33 W Ontario Condominium Association 33 W Ontario St	Multifamily Housing	4.6 kg/sqft Lowest 5%	4,849 tons Highest 16%
Trio Tower 670 W Wayman St	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	1,250 tons Lowest 17%
The Paragon Chicago 1326 S Michigan Avenue	Multifamily Housing	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	2,589 tons Highest 37%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data