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.)
Printers Row Condominium Association 711 S DEARBORN ST	Multifamily Housing	5.1 Lowest 9%	1,151 Lowest 11%
Kenwood Acad HS -CPS 5015 S Blackstone Ave	K-12 School	5.1 Lowest 9%	1,397 Lowest 24%
Marist HS 4200 W 115th St	K-12 School	5.1 Lowest 9%	1,236 Lowest 16%
1660 N LaSalle CA 1660 N LaSalle St	Multifamily Housing	5.1 Lowest 9%	2,446 Highest 39%
Lindblom College Prep -CPS 6130 S Wolcott Ave	K-12 School	5.1 Lowest 9%	1,545 Lowest 31%
500 Lake Shore Drive 500 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.1 Lowest 9%	3,649 Highest 24%
3750 North Lakeshore Drive 3750 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.1 Lowest 9%	2,011 Lowest 49%
Tower Residences Condominium Association 1235 S Prairie Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.1 Lowest 9%	3,062 Highest 30%
One East Wacker 1 E Wacker Dr	Office	5.1 Lowest 9%	3,523 Highest 25%
University Park Condominium Association 🏆 1451 E 55th St	Multifamily Housing	5.1 Lowest 9%	2,776 Highest 34%
Merchandise Mart 🚩 📷 222 Merchandise Mart Plz	Office	5.1 Lowest 9%	20,933 #17 Highest
The State Parkway CA 1445 N State Pkwy	Multifamily Housing	5.0 Lowest 8%	1,429 Lowest 25%
Appleville Condominium 501 W 24th Pl	Multifamily Housing	5.0 Lowest 8%	1,294 Lowest 19%
1125 W Loyola Ave 1125 W Loyola Ave	Residence Hall/Dormitory	5.0 Lowest 8%	1,289 Lowest 19%
828 W GRACE ST 828 W GRACE ST	Multifamily Housing	5.0 Lowest 8%	1,104 Lowest 8%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data