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.)
Austin Polytechical HS -CPS 231 N Pine Ave	K-12 School	4.5 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	1,771 tons Lowest 41%
Homewood Suites by Hampton Inn 118 N JEFFERSON ST	Hotel	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	1,472 tons Lowest 28%
Rudolph, Wilma Elementary Learning Center/ Hope Institute -CPS 1628 W Washington Blvd	K-12 School	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	1,156 tons Lowest 11%
No. 10 Urban Court Lofts 1040 W Adams St	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	1,713 tons Lowest 38%
Roosevelt HS, Theodore -CPS 3436 W Wilson Ave	K-12 School	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	1,418 tons Lowest 25%
Museum of Science and Industry 5700 S Lake Shore Dr	Museum	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	5,372 tons Highest 14%
Carl Sandburg Village Condo Association #2 1455 - 1460 N Sandburg Ter	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	3,417 tons Highest 26%
The Pavilion 5441 N East River Rd	Multifamily Housing	4.4 kg/sqft Lowest 4%	4,699 tons Highest 17%
TransUnion LLC 555 W Adams St	Office	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 3%	1,354 tons Lowest 22%
131 S Dearborn 3 131 S Dearborn	Financial Office	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 3%	1,170 tons Lowest 12%
311 W Monroe 311 W Monroe	Office	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 3%	1,845 tons Lowest 43%
15th Place 811 - 833 W 15th Pl	Multifamily Housing	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 3%	1,094 tons Lowest 7%
Lake Shore Condominium Association 1440 N LAKESHORE DR	Multifamily Housing	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 3%	1,325 tons Lowest 20%
(IL296) - 1400 Museum Park Condo 100 E 14th St	Multifamily Housing	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 3%	2,343 tons Highest 42%
The Blackstone, A Renaissance Hotel 636 S Michigan Ave	Hotel	4.3 kg/sqft Lowest 3%	1,665 tons Lowest 36%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data