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/sqft)	Total Greenhouse Emissions (metric tons CO₂ eq.)
200 N LaSalle Ave 200 N LaSalle Ave	Office	7.2 Lowest 42%	5,043 Highest 16%
125 South Wacker 125 S Wacker Dr	Office	7.2 Lowest 42%	4,595 Highest 18%
Prajakta Meharunkar 1515 W Webster Avenue	Office	7.2 Lowest 42%	1,556 Lowest 32%
345-355 N Canal St 345-355 N Canal St	Multifamily Housing	7.2 Lowest 42%	1,264 Lowest 17%
300 North LaSalle 🚩 300 N LaSalle St	Office	7.2 Lowest 42%	10,862 Highest 5%
1301 N STATE PKWY 1301 N STATE PKWY	Hotel	7.2 Lowest 42%	1,354 Lowest 22%
Gray Hotel - Kimpton Hotel 39 S LaSalle St	Hotel	7.2 Lowest 42%	1,728 Lowest 39%
Jones College Prep, William - CPS 600 S State St	K-12 School	7.2 Lowest 42%	1,741 Lowest 40%
LaSalle Terrace Condominium Association 1540 N LaSalle St	Multifamily Housing	7.2 Lowest 42%	1,093 Lowest 7%
One East 15th Place 1529 S STATE ST	Multifamily Housing	7.2 Lowest 42%	1,348 Lowest 22%
Hilliard Homes Phase II Limited Partnership 2030 S State St	Multifamily Housing	7.2 Lowest 42%	1,250 Lowest 17%
221 E 121ST PL 🏆 221 E 121ST PL	Multifamily Housing	7.2 Lowest 42%	1,111 Lowest 8%
R&D 659 CA 659 W Randolph St	Multifamily Housing	7.2 Lowest 42%	2,201 Highest 46%
1464 S Michigan Ave 1464 S Michigan Ave	Multifamily Housing	7.2 Lowest 42%	1,911 Lowest 45%
Caroline Hedger Apartment 6400 N Sherdian Rd	Multifamily Housing	7.2 Lowest 42%	1,843 Lowest 43%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data