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Electrify Chicago

An independent tool for viewing City of Chicago building data

According to the 2022 Chicago Climate Action Plan(opens in a new tab), 69% of Chicago's emissions come from buildings, making building emissions our biggest challenge and our biggest opportunity as a city to tackle climate change. At Electrify Chicago, we showcase building performance using publicly available data supplemented by community-submitted photographs and building owners.

Start by looking at Chicago's buildings with the highest greenhouse gas intensity i.e. emissions per square foot. Large, efficient, buildings can perform much better than very inefficient small buildings on this metric.

New Article
📰 $30 Million In Missed Fines

The City Of Chicago failed to collect $30 million in potential fines from the building benchmarking ordinance, reducing transparency and accountability.

Read Our Full Blog Post On Millions in Missed Fines.

Legislative update! 🎉

As of late January 2024, legislation is being introduced to require new use more efficient forms of water and space heating, via the Clean And Affordable Buildings Ordinance (CABO), which will reduce the number of highly polluting and inefficient buildings that end up on this site.

If you're in Chicago, write to your alderman to support the CABO! (opens in a new tab)

Chicago Buildings by Greenhouse Gas Intensity

Note: Data includes large Chicago buildings with data from 2022, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Note: This data only includes buildings whose emissions are reported under the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Ordinance(opens in a new tab). 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.

The latest year of data is from 2022, but we update the site regularly when new data is available, and some buildings may have failed to report that year, and only have older data available.

Property Name / address Primary Property Type Greenhouse Gas Intensity
(kg CO2 eq./sqft)
Total Greenhouse Emissions
(metric tons CO2 eq.)
Bricktown Square
🕰️
6420 W FULLERTON AVE
Strip Mall
16.8 kg/sqft
2,308 tons
Presence St Joseph Hospital - Chicago
🚩
2900 N Lake Shore Dr
Hospital (General Medical & Surgical)
16.7 kg/sqft
Highest 4%
11,357 tons
Highest 2%
Chicago Board Options Exchange
🕰️
400 S LaSalle St
Financial Office
16.7 kg/sqft
5,836 tons
Park Place on the Blvd
🕰️
1118-1128 E. Hyde Park
Multifamily Housing
16.6 kg/sqft
1,064 tons
Northwestern University Chicago Campus
(Northwestern)
710 N Lakeshore Dr
College/University
16.6 kg/sqft
Highest 4%
3,907 tons
Highest 9%
Alden Estate of Northmoor
5831 N Northwest Hwy
Senior Living Community
16.5 kg/sqft
Highest 4%
1,385 tons
Highest 34%
Chicago Campbell
🕰️
3300 N Campbell Ave
College/University
16.5 kg/sqft
2,299 tons
555 E 33RD PL
555 E 33RD PL
Multifamily Housing
16.5 kg/sqft
Highest 4%
1,774 tons
Highest 26%
Jewel Osco, 03442-Foster & Pulaski
4042 W Foster Ave
Supermarket/Grocery Store
16.5 kg/sqft
Highest 4%
1,074 tons
Highest 43%
Garfield Park Behavioral Hospital
520 N Ridgeway Ave
Other - Specialty Hospital
16.5 kg/sqft
Highest 4%
880 tons
Lowest 50%
East View Park Condominium
5423 5453 S EASTVIEW PARK
Multifamily Housing
16.4 kg/sqft
Highest 4%
979 tons
Highest 46%
87th Street Center - All Stores
🕰️
35 W. 87TH STREET
Retail Store
16.3 kg/sqft
2,843 tons
IRI Global Headquarters
🕰️
150 N. Clinton Street
Office
16.3 kg/sqft
2,585 tons
Jenel Management Corp
🕰️
25 E Oak St
Other - Mall
16.3 kg/sqft
832 tons
645 N Michigan Ave
645 N Michigan Ave
Office
16.2 kg/sqft
Highest 4%
3,489 tons
Highest 11%
Page 13 of 226 (Building #181 to #195)

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data (opens in a new tab)