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.)
Venetian Condominium Assoc. 222 232 W DIVISION ST	Multifamily Housing	5.0 Lowest 8%	1,124 Lowest 9%
5040 5060 N BROADWAY 5040 5060 N BROADWAY	Multifamily Housing	5.0 Lowest 8%	2,117 Highest 48%
Parc Huron 469 West Huron St	Multifamily Housing	5.0 Lowest 8%	1,777 Lowest 41%
Kenmore Plaza Tenant Association 5225 N Kenmore Ave	Multifamily Housing	5.0 Lowest 8%	1,342 Lowest 22%
727 W Madison St 727 W Madison St	Multifamily Housing	5.0 Lowest 8%	3,486 Highest 25%
Park Alexandria Condominium Association 125 S Jefferson St	Multifamily Housing	5.0 Lowest 8%	2,073 Lowest 50%
120 S LaSalle St 120 S LaSalle St	Office	5.0 Lowest 8%	3,773 Highest 23%
North Water Apartments & Loews Chicago Hotel 340 E North Water St	Multifamily Housing	5.0 Lowest 8%	4,316 Highest 19%
1550 CA 1550 N Lake Shore Dr	Multifamily Housing	5.0 Lowest 8%	1,814 Lowest 42%
Presidential Towers 🚩 555 W Madison St	Multifamily Housing	5.0 Lowest 8%	13,672 #47 Highest
2626 Lakeview Condominium 2626 N Lakeview Ave	Multifamily Housing	4.9 Lowest 7%	3,831 Highest 23%
Alta Roosevelt 801 S Financial Place	Multifamily Housing	4.9 Lowest 7%	3,074 Highest 30%
25 E Washington 25 E Washington St	Office	4.9 Lowest 7%	2,380 Highest 41%
1000 W Washington Blvd 1000 W Washington Blvd	Multifamily Housing	4.9 Lowest 7%	1,626 Lowest 34%
Pullman Wheelworks Apartments 901 E 104th St	Multifamily Housing	4.9 Lowest 7%	1,449 Lowest 27%

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data