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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.)
200 N LaSalle Ave
200 N LaSalle Ave
Office
6.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 42%
4,217 tons
Highest 9%
515 North State
515 N STATE ST
Office
6.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 42%
4,543 tons
Highest 8%
525 W Monroe St
525 W Monroe St
Office
6.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 42%
6,155 tons
Highest 5%
5220 S DREXEL AVE
5220 S DREXEL AVE
Multifamily Housing
6.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 42%
321 tons
Lowest 10%
Daley
🕰️
7500 S Pulaski Ave
College/University
6.0 kg/sqft
2,999 tons
Dixon Building
411 - 415 S Wells St
Office
6.0 kg/sqft
Lowest 42%
347 tons
Lowest 12%
The Gage Commericial Condominium Building
18 28 S Michigan Ave
College/University
5.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 40%
1,241 tons
Highest 38%
61 E Banks Street
61 E Banks Street
Multifamily Housing
5.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 40%
791 tons
Lowest 45%
1920 N Milwaukee Ave
1920 N Milwaukee Ave
Multifamily Housing
5.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 40%
360 tons
Lowest 14%
Astor Villa Condominium Association
1430 N Astor St
Multifamily Housing
5.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 40%
658 tons
Lowest 38%
Ainslie Park Condominium Association
840 846 W Ainslie St
Multifamily Housing
5.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 40%
312 tons
Lowest 9%
Mercy Housing Lakefront?s Englewood Apartments
901 W 63rd St
Multifamily Housing
5.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 40%
371 tons
Lowest 14%
-
5630 N Sheridan Ave
Multifamily Housing
5.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 40%
1,418 tons
Highest 33%
-
917 W Eastwood Ave
Multifamily Housing
5.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 40%
449 tons
Lowest 22%
Ray Elementary -CPS
(CPS)
5631 S Kimbark Ave
K-12 School
5.9 kg/sqft
Lowest 40%
680 tons
Lowest 39%
Page 135 of 226 (Building #2011 to #2025)

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