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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.)
The Edge on Broadway
6149 N. Broadway
Multifamily Housing
5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
445 tons
Lowest 21%
2737 N. Hoyne Avenue
2737 N. Hoyne Avenue
Multifamily Housing
5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
258 tons
Lowest 5%
Perlstein Hall
🕰️
(Illinois Tech)
10 W 33rd Street
College/University
5.7 kg/sqft
583 tons
Thornwood House Apartments (University Park)
🕰️
1 Thornwood Drive
Multifamily Housing
5.7 kg/sqft
819 tons
ASPIRA Business and Finance High School
🕰️
2989 N Milwaukee Ave
K-12 School
5.7 kg/sqft
470 tons
Lincoln Village 2
🕰️
6135-6199 North Lincoln
Strip Mall
5.7 kg/sqft
326 tons
EMME Chicago - CO (mz16)
🕰️
165 N Desplaines St
Multifamily Housing
5.7 kg/sqft
1,121 tons
Aurelien
833 N Clark St
Multifamily Housing
5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
2,190 tons
Highest 21%
The Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School
6245 S INGLESIDE AVE
K-12 School
5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
431 tons
Lowest 20%
Sabina Senior Housing Corporation (St. Sabina Elders Village)
1222 W 79th St
Multifamily Housing
5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
439 tons
Lowest 20%
831 43 W Adams St
831 43 W Adams St
Multifamily Housing
5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
592 tons
Lowest 33%
Harold Washington Apartments
4946 N Sheridan Rd
Multifamily Housing
5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
247 tons
Lowest 5%
Humboldt Ridge Apartments
🕰️
1816 N St Louis Ave
Multifamily Housing
5.7 kg/sqft
257 tons
213 West Institute Place
213 W Institute Pl
Office
5.7 kg/sqft
Lowest 37%
883 tons
Lowest 50%
Claremont Academy Elementary School
🕰️
(CPS)
6315 S Claremont Ave
K-12 School
5.7 kg/sqft
647 tons
Page 143 of 226 (Building #2131 to #2145)

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